
ass. 



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MIlNOIPS AND I^CCOLLCCTIOMS 

or 

C W. GOODIJXMDI:!^ 

Of the 

n\Q\y DAYS or roPT :>cotv 



rroii^' April 29, 1 555, to Jai\ucin/ i , 1 570, Cox'eriiv) 

the time prior to the advent of the Pailrocid 

(iiAd during tl\e davs of the ox-teanA 

ciiAd stage transportation. 



A\\i\ hiograpixies of Col. H. T. Wilson and Geo. A". 
Crawford, the fathers of Tort 5cott. 



FORT SCOTT, KANSAS. 

MONITOR PRINTING CO. 

1900. 



.F7C,7 



l^edicatexJ to ri\c carlv serriers of l^ourhon Coiii\W, 
Koivscis. 






/WENOIRS AND [RECOLLECTIONS 
EARLN' DAYS OF FORT SCOTT. 



About the first of May, 1855, I took Horace 
Greeley's advice: "Go west, young man, and 
oTow up with the country," and left my native 
town of Milton, Pennsylvania. I first stopped 
some four months in LaPorte, Indiana, and went 
from there to Dixon, Illinois, where I stayed some 
four months. On the first day of December in 
company with a fellow-carpenter I went to Fulton 
City, Illinois, on the Mississippi River, with the 
intention of taking* a boat for New Orleans. The 
day before we got there the last boat for the 
season went down the river, so we stopped at 
Fulton City and went to work at our trade of car- 
pentering on a large hotel that was being built 
there, called the Dement House. I stayed at 
Fulton City until September, 1857, when I went to 
St. Loliis, and was there until the second day of 
December, when I engaged passage on a boat for 
Pittsburg. The same day I went up to the old 
Planters Hotel to get my dinner before leaving, 
and in the hotel I met George A. Crawford, hav- 
ing become acquainted with him in Illinois during 
the spring of '57. He says to me: "Come, go 
along to Fort Scott: I and some others have 
started a good town there." I told Mr. Crawford 



4 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

my intention was to go west and get ahead of the 
raih^oads, so as to get me a cheap farm, but I 
had paid my passage to go back east and spend 
the winter with my mother before going further 
west, but I promised him to come to Fort Scott 
the following spring. 

I went to my old home and during the winter 
and until late spring it was a question in my 
mind whether to settle down in my old home or go 
further west than I had been before. At last, 
about the middle of April, my desire to go west 
again conquered, and besides I felt that I should 
keep my promise to Crawford to go to Fort Scott. 
So between my promise to Crawford and the 
desire to again obey Greeley's advice I left my 
old home for Fort Scott, coming west by rail 
to St. Louis, and from there I took a boat for 
Kansas City, via the Missouri River. Arriving 
at Kansas City on the evening of the 27th day of 
April, 1858, and taking my tool chest from the 
boat I put it in the commission house of Crowell 
Bros., and then went to the Gillis Hotel, situated 
on the levee (the principal hotel in Kansas City 
at that time). I remained there all night, and the 
next morning looked up the stage office, which 
was then located in the basement of what I now 
remember as the Watkins bank building, on 
Second and Main Streets. I learned that the 
stage line had only been established some few 
days and was getting very few passengers. I 
engaged passage for which I paid $15.00, and 
found that I was the only passenger for Fort 
Scott, but I had one companion, a Mr. Squires, 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T .iCO TT 5 

who was taking- out express for the tirst time, — in 
fact it was he who established the express line. 

The stage left> the office about eight o'clock in 
the morning-, and the route was along- Main Street 
to Thirteenth Street, where they crossed lots to 
Grand Avenue. Kansas City then, I should 
judge, was a town of some three thousand inhabi- 
tants. The east and west bottoms were covered 
with heavy timber, as were the hills on either side 
of Main Street and Kansas City at that time con- 
sisted almost entirely of the levee and Main 
Street. From Kansas City we went to Westport. 
Westport at that time showed more life than Kan- 
sas City, as it was the starting place for all 
freight going out on the Santa Fe trail for Santa 
Fe, New Mexico. This freight would be hauled 
from the Kansas City landing, and then reloaded 
at Westport for the long trip it had to be hauled, 
and started out from there in regular trains of 
wagons hauled by oxen, — probably twenty to 
thirty wagons hauled by eight to ten yoke of oxen 
to the wagon. The drivers of these wagons were 
under the control or lead of what was called the 
wagon boss, or you might say, conductor, whose 
word was law. These men were selected for their 
intelligence, bravery and efficiency for the posi- 
tion. The drivers of the wagons were a mixed 
set, greasers predominating. 

From Westport we went to Shawnee Mission, 
now Merriam. A few miles from Shawnee Mis- 
sion we struck the prairie, and from there on we 
saw few settlements. At noon we stopped at a 
place called Squiresville for dinner, which place 



6 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

consisted of one store, one dwelling- house, black- 
smith shop and stage stable. The dinner consisted 
of salt pork, beans, dried apples and coffee. 
Squiresville was near, I think, where the town of 
Olathe is now situated. After leaving Squires- 
ville the settlements became more scattering. We 
reached Osawatomie in the evening and put up 
there for the night. This was the largest town 
between Kansas Citv and Fort Scott, and it was 
not much to brag of as a town. 

We got an early start next morning and reached 
Moneka for dinner, a point some few miles north 
of the present Mound City. The dinner at Moneka 
was not much of an improvement over that at 
Squiresville, as it consisted mostly of vegetables. 
By the way, the people who settled this town were 
vegetarians and the women wore bloomer cos- 
tumes. About all the inhabitants were named 
Wattles. The town was about the size of Squires- 
ville. The stage rolled away from Moneka at 
early noon. The driver said he would get to Fort 
Scott at six o'clock. We crossed the Osage at a 
place called Rayville, and crossed the Marmaton 
at the old Military Ford, at the mouth of Mill 
Creek. We came up into Fort Scott from the 
river bottom about where National Avenue now 
is, and from there went over to the fort buildings, 
stopping at what was then known as the Free 
State hotel, which is the building that Squire 
Margrave now occupies as a residence. It had 
been one of the officers' quarters of the fort. As 
the stage rolled up all the occupants of the hotel 
were on the sidewalk to receive the new arrivals. 



.JK?»-« 



:S: 









f\> 



EA RL y DA YS OF FORT ^COTT 7 

There were two parties in the small crowd whom I 
knew before I came to Fort Scott, — they were 
George A. Crawford and William Gallagher. 
They soon made me at home and acquainted with 
the balance of the boys. The persons who were 
in the crowd to welcome newcomers were, as I 
remember, George A. Crawford, William Galla- 
gher, Ben McDonald, Ed Smith, Bill Bentley, 
Charley Bull, Burns Gordon, Charley Dimond, 
Jim Jones, Tom Roberts, Ed Bonen and Joe Ray. 
After congratulations were over Ray called me 
aside and said: "You appear to be a nice kind of 
a fellow, come along and I will set up the drinks. " 
I walked off with him, going down the sidewalk 
along the present row of buildings facing the 
plaza, and then across the plaza to the house east 
of the present calaboose, where a saloon was kept 
by a man named Head. This building had been 
the wagon scale house for fort purposes. On the 
way to the saloon Joe felt around in his pocket 
and said: "By the way, friend, I have no money; 
will you lend me a quarter?" I reached in my 
pocket and got out an old worn quarter, which in 
those days was only worth twenty-two and a half 
cents, and by the way, it was the only money 
I had left after paying my fare and expenses to 
Fort Scott, and handed it to him, not letting him 
know but what I had plenty of money. In after 
years when speaking to Joe about paying me back 
the twenty-five cents he would say I passed twenty- 
two and a half cents off on him for a quarter and 
he threatened to have me arrested, but he never 
did pay it back to me. Joe proved to be the wag 



8 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

of the town. From Head's saloon I went back to 
the hotel and became a full-fledged boarder. 
After getting my supper, I made inquiry among 
the boys as to the prospect of getting work at my 
trade. They said there was not much going on, 
but after a few days I could probably find some- 
thing to do. This was not very encouraging to 
me, as I had to earn something for I was dead 
broke. At bed time George Crawford said: "You 
can come and sleep with me: " and as we went to 
bed he said, "Here is a gun, lay it alongside of 
you." I said: "What's that for'?" "Oh, " he 
said, "we may be attacked by the Jayhaw^kers 
before morning, and you must use it." "Well," 
I said, "I am into it now, and I will do as the bal- 
ance of you do." The next morning I thought I 
would make myself acquainted with the town, and 
what the boys at the hotel did. I found that Col. 
Campbell, father of Albert Campbell, was land- 
lord of the hotel. William Gallagher was hotel 
clerk and postmaster, and by the way, I think 
Gallagher started the first free delivery mail 
system in America. He used to carry the letters 
around in his hat, and as he met the boys gave 
them their mail. George A. Crawford was presi- 
dent of the town company, and Ben McDonald 
and Ed Smith had something to do with it, as Ed 
was a surveyor and Ben was his assistant to 
carry the ax and drive stakes. Ben looked like 
the dude of the crowd. He wore a Daniel Web- 
ster blue coat, with brass buttons. Burns Gordon 
and Joe Ray clerked for Col. Wilson. Jim Jones 
was editor of the Fort Scott Democrat, and Char- 



EARLY DAYS OF FORT SCOTT 9 

ley Bull was boss printer. Ed Bowen and Alex 
McDonald ran a saw-mill ; Bill Bentley had 
charge of the vantuan game that the boys played 
when they were not at work, and the latter they 
did not do much of. A. R. Allison was the under- 
taker; Charley Dimond was the democratic poli- 
tician and Tom Roberts the republican politician. 
These two did most of the talking. 

My recollection of the town as it was when 
I came is that the four officers' quarters now 
stand as they stood the day I came. At the west 
end from where Squire Margrave lives was a one- 
story building, called the ordnance building. At 
the other end of the row of the officers ' quarters 
was a one-story building, where the Lyons prop- 
erty now stands, called the commissary building. 
Out on the bluff on the east was a corrall for the 
live stock of the government, and on the side of 
the hill was a corn mill operated by horse power. 
On the east side of the Plaza where the Hawley 
houses now stand were the soldiers' quarters, and 
on the west side of the Plaza, where Brown's lum- 
ber yard now stands, were also soldiers 'quarters. 
Where the Western Barn now is was a cavalry 
stable two hundred feet long. On the south side 
in the rear of Dilworth's hardware store was 
another soldiers' quarters. This building was 
occupied for hotel purposes and was called the 
Pro-Slavery Hotel. The building now occupied 
as Mrs. Terry's 'bus barn was the hospital, and 
the building occupied by the calaboose was the 
fort guard-house. Over the well on the Plaza was 
a fine canopy of Doric architecture, and on the 



10 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Plaza opposite stood an octagon brick and stone 
magazine. This completes my recollection of the 
fort as it was then. 

As to what there was of Fort Scott at that time 
outside of the fort was the town company's office, 
the printing office in second story, on the lot 
across the alley from Bamberger's, facing on 
what is at present Market Street. Some two or 
three lots farther west on Market Street was a one 
and one-half story building owned by John S. 
Cawkins, an old bachelor, and farther west on 
Market Street, about where Prichard's drug store 
now stands, was a store owned by Dr. Bills. 
This building fronted both on Market Street and 
the fort grounds. It was occupied as a general 
store. Still farther west was the baker shop of 
Dutch Schubert, about where O'Brien's harness 
shop is now. About where the Star Hotel stood 
was a double log house occupied by H. T.Wilson 
as a store, which had been the sutler's store of 
the post. On the corner of National Avenue and 
First Street, where the feed store now is, was what 
was called Fort Roach, occupied by Roach and 
his family. Diagonally across the street, on the 
same lot which the Tribune now occupies, stood a 
house about half finished, the builder having 
fallen by the wayside for the want of funds. Out 
about where the Presbyterian Church now stands 
was what was known as the government field. 
Where stands what is known as the Robley build- 
ing, occupied by W. C. Gunn, was a blacksmith 
shop, belonging to a man named Kelly. Back 
north of the fort building was a log house in 




Scale House of the Fort as it looks to-day, where the 

first Saloon was and where Joe Ray 

treated Goodlander. 



/;. 1 HL Y DA\ 'S F FO R T SCO TT 11 

which Squire Margrave lived. This was all that 
comprised the tow^n west of Buck Run, except the 
saw mill put up by Alex McDonald and Ed Bowen 
and it stood about on First and Ransom Streets. 
Among- the buildings that I recollect as being over 
on what is called the East Side, there was a house 
somewhere near First and Margrave occupied 
by Charles Haynes and family. This house had 
its sides as w^ell as its roof shingled, and being a 
carpenter my attention was called particularly to 
that fact. The only other house that I recollect 
of on the East Side was occupied by a man named 
Wintield, and stood about in the neighborhood 
of Engineer Fisher's house on Wall Street. The 
g-round between where the Tremont House stands 
and the bluff where Fisher's house is located was 
densely covered with trees and underbrush. There 
was only a pathway from the Haynes house and 
the Winfield house to the west part of town at 
that time. Those who were then living here, as I 
recollect, besides the. parties mentioned who were 
at the Free State Hotel, were Governor Ransom 
and wife. Judge Joe Williams and family. George 
W. Clark and family, C. H. Haynes and family, 
H. T. Wilson and family, Squire Margrave and 
family, T.W. Tallman and family. Dr. Couch and 
family, B. F. Riggins and family, Blake Little and 
family. Dr. Bills and family. Old Roach and 
family. Widow Cooper, Jack Harris and family, 
Squire Bullock and family, Bill Linn, J. S Caw- 
kins, Salmon P. Hall, Kelly, the blacksmith, 
Charles Osbun, Ed Wiggins, and some freaks,— 
Giant Symms, No Hand Casey, Bird-face Price, 



12 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Hunch-back George, Skeleton Funk, the fisher- 
man, and garrulous Dutch Schubert, the baker. 
Joe Ray used to say that it would be a good busi- 
ness venture to take this gang and travel as a 
side show to show the proportion of freaks to 
the inhabitants of Fort Scott at that time. As far 
as I can recollect the population was only 
increased during the year of 1858 by the following 
arrivals early in May,— George Dimond, A. F. 
Bicking and Dick Phillips, all partners. Also in 
the same month came Alex McDonald and wife, 
( he had been here before and went back for his 
family). Uncle Billy Smith and family. Jack 
White, Bill Dennison, Soul Eaton, and in June 
came C. F. Drake, and later on Ed Marble. As 
far as I can recollect this comprises the arrivals 
of 1858 after my arrival. Drake was a tinner by 
trade and opened up a tinker's shop. He was 
rather a quiet sort of a fellow, a neat dresser, and 
what you would call a pretty man, — slim and trim. 
He was rather backward and did not mix much 
with the boys at first, and the boys made up their 
minds that he was not cut out for a frontier town 
until one day the boys were having a frolic and 
Drake was standing by enjoying what was going 
on. The boys were trying the strength of their 
arms by holding out a bar of iron, and Drake 
becoming a little bold says "Let me try it" and 
stepped forward. The burly fellows like Joe Ray, 
Charley Bull and others chuckled in their sleeves 
that a fellow the build of Drake should undertake 
to do what they could not do. Drake took hold 
of the bar of iron and held it out at arm's length. 



EARLY DAYS OF FORT SCOTT 13 

The boys were all surprised and from that day 
they took Drake into full fellowship and pro- 
nounced him one of the boys. Drake having 
used the muscles of his arms pounding metal at 
his trade had developed them more than the other 
boys. Ed Marble opened up the first shoemaker's 
shop here. 

The polities of the inhabitants at that time was 
border rutiian, pro-slavery democrats and free 
state democrats. There were only tw^o republicans 
— Tom Roberts and Old Roach. The free state 
and pro-slavery democrats were about equal in 
number. The border ruffian element, sometimes 
here and sometimes away, were Ben Hill, Brock- 
ett, two Hamiltons, Rufe Roach and Joe Price. 
There were others, but I do not remember their 
names. Some of these border ruffians, as well as 
some of the quiet pro-slavery men from the South, 
including Sims, Fisherman Funk and others, that 
did not approve of lawlessness, were sent here 
from the South by a man by the name of Titus, 
( we used to call them Titus ' men ) to help make 
Kansas a slave state, the same as men sent from 
the New England states to the north part of Kan- 
sas to make it a free state. In 1890 I was in 
Jacksonville, Florida, and was introduced to a 
gentleman as being from Fort Scott, Kansas. 
''Why," he says, "that is the point in Kansas 
that my old friend Titus from Georgia sent men to 
help whip out the Yankees." I says, "'Yes, I 
knew them, and if they were a sample of your 
Georgia people you had better kept them at home, 
as they did not make a very good record for the 
reputation of Georgia." 



14 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Most all the inhabitants lived in the old fort 
buildings. The soldiers quarter's on the south 
side of the square in the rear of Dilworth's store 
was then called the Pro-Slavery Hotel, and was 
kept by Jack Harris and Bill Linn. The fore- 
going comprises my recollection of the inhabitants 
of Fort Scott in 1858. 

It was Thursday evening when I arrived at Fort 
Scott. On the next day I had a conversation with 
George A. Crawford with reference to my future 
welfare. He says, "Charley, the first thing you 
do is to pick out a claim, as all the boys have 
their claims." By the way, the land here had not 
been surveyed by the government, and was not 
until 1860. Some of the boys said they knew of a 
claim that a party had taken who had left the 
country. This claim was a half mile west of the 
present Harmon Catt farm. The manner of taking 
a claim was to lay four logs in the form of a 
square, so I went out and moved the old logs some 
fifty feet and laid the new foundation, as we called 
it then, a new right to the land. This foundation 
was supposed to hold the claim for a sho-rt time. 
Before this time ran out, if you wanted to pre- 
empt the land you had to build a house or a 
shanty some ten or twelve feet square, and make 
it your home or call it your home and live there 
off and on for six months before you could use 
your pre-emption right. Before my foundation 
right run out I had a load of lumber, mostly slabs 
picked up at McDonald and Bowen's mill, hauled 
out and made a bargain with A. F. Bicking to 
come out and help me build the shanty. I took 




View of the parade ground of the fort. Hospital 

Building in the foreground, Magazine to 

the right and canopy over well 

to the left. 



EARLY DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 5 

my dinner with me and went out to build my 
shanty, but Bicking failed to keep his contract, 
and as I had no help I came away and never did 
build the shanty or use my pre-emption right, and 
afterwards made up my mind that when the land 
sales came later on I would enter the land, as I 
found that owing to the border ruffianism and 
Jayhawk troubles there was not likely to be many 
people here to buy land at the land sales that 
came in the fall of 1860. In the meantime I had 
bought, by giving my note to John Kaufman, of 
Milton, Pa., an old soldier of the war of 1812. a 
land warrant for 160 acres, — so I paid for my 1()0 
acres with this warrant, and at last got myself a 
farm, which was the height of my ambition when 
I left my Pennsylvania home. 

As I was settling my claim on the 31st day of 
May, Saturday, I made inquiry for something to 
do. On Sunday, J. S. Cawkins, who was then 
carrying the mail from here to Coffeechee, forty 
miles west on the Neosho river, said, "I am sick 
and can't make the trip this week," and asked me 
to make the trip for him, and said that he would 
furnish me a horse and sulky and pay me five dol- 
lars for the "trip, which I could make in two days. 
I jumped at the offer, so on Monday, May 2nd, I 
started out with an old roan horse, rope harness 
and an old sulky. I was told to stop at Turkey 
Creek, near where Uniontown now stands, and 
have the postmaster there take the mail bag and 
get what mail there was for that post office. I 
drove up about noon and saw a woman washing 
and asked her if the postmaster was in. She says 



16 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

" I will attend to it." In after years I found this 
house was where Judge Holt lived, who later 
became a prominent citizen of the county. She 
opened the mail bag and behold, all the mail there 
was in the bag was one copy of Horace Greeley's 
New York Tribune, and it was for the postmaster 
of Coffeechee — so it cost the government five dol- 
lars to deliver Horace Greeley's brains to Buch- 
anan's postmaster at Coffeechee. After leaving 
Turkey Creek the roads forked, one road led to 
Leroy and the other Coffeechee. When I got a mile 
west of the forks of the road my old horse balked 
and would not go any farther, so I thought I 
would let him graze awhile and likely he would 
then go on. I laid down on a gopher hill for 
about an hour and then tried to get him to go, but 
he would not move. I was in a dilemma, not 
knowing what to do. I turned the horse around 
with his head towards Turkey Creek to see if he 
would go that direction and found he would. As 
it was getting late and I had some fifteen miles 
yet to make to reach Coffeechee and fearing that I 
would have to lay out all night on the wild prairie 
I decided to go back to Turkey Creek and stay all 
night and take a new start in the morning. I 
started my horse and jumped into the sulky. The 
old horse went back as though he enjoyed it, 
showing he would rather go east than west. I 
reached Turkey Creek and the postmaster whom 
I stopped with says, "What is the matter"? " and 
I said, "My horse would not go west and I came 
to stay with you tonight and make a new start in 
the morning." 



EA ELY DAYS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 7 

In the morning I said to the postmaster, -'Will 
you please keep my horse until I return. " "Why, 
boy, what do you mean?" he says. I says, ''I 
won't be bothered any more with that horse, it 
don't like to go west: I will take the mail bag and 
foot it to Coffeechee: I have got the whole day 
before me and horse or no horse I am bound to 
carry this mail according to contract." "Oh," 
he says, "you are foolish, take the horse and try 
it again," and he persuaded me to do so. I did, 
but behold, when I got to the same gopher hill the 
horse stopped again. The point where he stopped 
was just at the foot of a rise in the prairie, so I 
took hold of the bridle and finding that he would 
lead I led him up the hill and when he commenced 
going down on the other side I started him off on 
a walk and jumped in the rear of the sulky so he 
should not see me and away he went without any 
more trouble. Reaching Coffeechee about five 
o'clock dry and hungry, having been over ten 
hours going some twenty odd miles — having trav- 
eled fully thirty miles on account of losing my 
way amongst the breaks in the prairie bordering 
the Neosho river, I drove up to the hotel, store, 
dwelling house and postoffice all combined, and 
handed the postmaster the mail bag, feeling proud 
that I had so far finished my contract. All there 
was of Cotteechee was a combined hotel, dw^elling 
house and store building, and the universal black- 
smith shop and a small shanty or two. The usual 
loungers' flat rail was found in front of the hotel. 
After supper as I was sitting on this rail a man 
rode up on a horse and tied him to this rail and 



18 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

went into the store. He had not been gone ten 
minutes before another man came up and unhitched 
the horse and rode him off east. I thought there 
was nothing- peculiar in the incident, until a few 
minutes later when the man who tied the horse 
there came out and said, "Young man, where is 
my horse." "There he goes," I said, pointing- 
east, "I guess one of your friends is playing a 
joke on you." He ripped out an oath and said a 
thief was stealing his horse. He fussed around 
and got another horse and started away after his. 
I began to think I had gotten into a hard country. 
As I had a pistol which I had borrowed from Ben 
McDonald, never having carried a pistol before 
or since, I went down on the banks of Neosho 
river to practice. On my return to the hotel I 
found that the fellow who had gone after his horse 
had come back and claimed that the thief had got- 
ten away and showed a hole in his horse's ear, 
saying that the thief had shot at him and that he 
had a close call. He had a great deal to say in 
the store that evening. He saw I had a pistol and 
bantered me to a trade. I said, "It is not mine, " 
and he said, "Young man, don't be too honest, 
trade it off and get one of your own; that is the 
way to prosper on the frontier." 

The following fall I met a party from Coffeechee 
and told him the horse thief incident. He says, 
"Oh, I will explain that; there was a gang of 
horse thieves stealing horses in the Verdigris river 
country, and the program was for one man to ride 
a horse into town the same way that this hap- 
pened, when another of the gang would be on hand 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT .SCO TT 19 

to ride him away, as the fellow did at Coffeechee." 
I left Coffeechee next morning, Wednesday, and 
as my horse liked going- east better than going 
west, I got back to Fort Scott Wednesday night 
with my face all blistered up by the sun, as I wore 
an oil cloth glazed cap: having expended $2.50 for 
expense I had $2.50 left, the first money I had 
earned in Kansas. 

At that time there was no settlement between 
here and the Neosho river, except Turkey Creek. 
When I returned to Fort Scott the United States 
Court was in session, and Jim Jones, acting as 
marshal summoned me as a juryman. Judge Joe 
Williams held United States Court here twice a 
year, and as the jurymen summoned from a dis- 
tance hardly ever came it was a soft snap for the 
boys each spring and fall to get to be jurymen and 
draw two dollars a day. The principal business 
of the court was Indian business. As the court 
held eleven days I got $22.00, paid in script. This 
I turned over to Colonel Campbell to pay for my 
board, so the first money I earned in Kansas was 
from the government crib. Then I looked around 
for something to do at my trade. William Gal- 
lagher concluded to move the postoffice from the 
hotel to the first story of the town company build- 
ing, and I made arrangements with him at $3.00 a 
day to fix up the office. The job lasted ten days. 
I carried the lumber for the work from the saw 
mill on my back. I made the boxes of walnut 
lumber, as that is the best we had in those days 
for that kind of work. To get lumber suitable to 
make a batting door which was needed in the 



20 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

building I had to use six different kinds of lumber. 
After the postoffice was fitted up Gallagher and I 
slept there for some months during the summer of 
1858. All we had for bed clothes was the mail 
bags and a sheet or two. When the sheets got 
dirty we burned them instead of getting them 
washed. After getting the postoffice work finished 
I picked up odd jobs for a while. 

Early in the fall Bachelor Cawkins told me I 
could put a cot in the first floor of his house where 
he slept. As this was a good change from the 
post office quarters I accepted the offer. So 1 was 
a room mate of Bachelor Cawkins for some 
months. He and I got along very nicely together. 
That fall I got the chills pretty hard and Brother 
Cawkins gave me some medicine that he said 
would knock it, and he had me standing on my 
head for a couple of days, but, you bet, it did the 
business. Ed. Bowen used to keep a bottle of 
whiskey with Cawkins, and as he passed morning, 
noon and night on his way from the mill to the 
hotel he would stop and get his toddy. In the 
second story of Cawkins' building Mrs. Haynes 
had a small school of children that she used to 
come over from her home in the brush on the 
other side of Buck Run to teach. Old Cawkins 
liked to be quite a ladies' man, but he had some 
wheels in his head on that subject. 

On June 1st I commenced to build myself a shop 
and called myself a full fledged contractor. This 
shop was built where the building now stands that 
was occupied by The Monitor, on Scott avenue. 




JENNIE ROBINSON. 
The First White Child Born in Fort Scott. The 
Oldest Dauo^hter of H. T. Wilson, was the Wife of 
Mayor Ray and Late Wife of W. R. Robin- 
son. Died November 4, 1896. 



EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 21 

About this time Ben McDonald and A\. Campbell, 
capitalists, concluded to build a house and con- 
tracted with me to boss the job' at $3.00 a day, and 
they were tD be the carpenters to help on the job. 
This house was built where the present Hill block 
is, and at that time was away out on a cheap lot 
and you can bet it was a cheap house. Campbell 
made the shingles for the house. McDonald and 
Campbell were both very crude carpenters. Ben 
did not like the idea of getting on a scaffold, and 
he proposed that he would cut the siding while I 
nailed it on. Ben was a great fellow to shirk hard 
work or danger. 

The next job I got was a contract to build a 
house for Dr. Bills, with whom I boarded at this 
time. I was to take my pay in board and fruit 
trees, which I was going to set out on my claim. 
This house was built on the lot where the Lotterer 
Building now stands, and is now occupied by 
Cheap Charley. In later years Charley Drake 
moved this house to the lot where Randolph's 
store now stands. Drake lived there until he built 
his present home. In the fall of the year I con- 
tracted to build what was then considered a large 
building for Ben Riggins, for a store house, on 
the lot where the present McCord Building stands. 
on the corner of Market and Lincoln Streets. This 
was a full two-story building, 16x20, and my pro- 
tits on this job placed me on a fair road to riches. 
To make the sash and doors for the front I had 
some old walnut columns which were left from the 
old fort buildings taken to the saw mill and made 
into two inch lumber. I finished this building in 



22 MEMOIRS AND EECOLLECTIOXS 

December. To the best of my recollection the 
buildings here mentioned were all that were built 
in 1858, except the 'house which Uncle Billy Smith 
built for himself, at the corner of Scott Avenue 
and First Street, where Bearman's mattress fac- 
tory is now located. 

Incidents that occur to my recollection during 
the year of 1858 were as follows: The day before 
I came to Fort Scott the border ruffian crowd 
ordered George A. Crawford, William Gallagher 
and Charley Dimond, free state democrats, to 
leave town, under penalty of death if they did not. 
They did not leave, nor did they get killed. The 
same crowd of border ruffians, after the Marias 
des Cygnes massacre in Linn County, which occur- 
red a short time after my arrival, in which there is 
every reason to believe they took part, left the 
country for the country's good. This massacre 
was one of the most cold blooded and brutal 
affairs that occurred on the Missouri and Kansas 
border during these times. These border ruffians, 
it appears, gave Kansas a parting blow before 
they left the country, went into the eastern part of 
Linn County, near the Marias des Cygnes River 
and took some dozen innocent men prisoners and 
stood them up in a row and shot them down in 
cold blood, killing all but a couple, who feigned 
death and escaped. Among the associates of 
these border ruffians was a very small man by the 
name of Joe Price, who had a disfigured face that 
looked so much like a bird, that old John Brown 
who had him a prisoner at one time at Osawatomie 



EA RLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 23 

gave him the name of Arkan.sas Snipe. |he being 
from Arkansas, which name stuck to him as long- 
as I knew him. 

There were continual rumors that the Jayhawk- 
ers were coming to burn the town. One Sunday, I 
think it was in June, a crowd of some sixty men, 
headed by John Hamilton, came rushing across 
the Plaza to General Clark's house, which is now 
known as the Blair house, to arrest said Clark, — 
for what cause I do not remember. At that time 
there was a battery company, commanded by 
Lieutenant Finch, camped about the south side of 
Market Square. Lieutenant Finch interfered with 
the crowd and took General Clark from them and 
said he would be responsible for him. General 
Clark was the receiver of the United States land 
office and claimed the protection of the government 
troops. The crowd left town without any more 
demonstrations. 

A few days after this Sunday raid we received 
word from the Jayhawkers to meet at Rayville on 
the Osage to attend a meeting of the citizens of 
Bourbon County to try and adjust the troubles 
that were going on. All the free state boys that 
were here and who could get a horse to ride under 
the leadership of Jim Jones, went up there, and 
met quite a crowd. Jim was the spokesman for 
our side, and Montgomery for the other side, 
assisted by a large blacksmith, — don't remember 
his name, — who had more to say than Montgomery 
did. The Montgomery party beat us on every 
vote that was taken on motions and resolutions 
proposed. The vote was taken by the crowd divid- 



24 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

ing-. We were outvoted three to one, so we left 
without anything being accomplished to settle the 
trouble, and we rode home feeling- that we had 
done our duty. 

About a month after this meeting at Rayville 
Governor Denver came to Fort Scott to see if he 
could not quiet the troubles in this county. He 
had given notice of his coming and most all the 
settlers of the county came to attend the meeting. 
Denver, after making quite a conciliatory speech, 
asked all the old county officers to resign and have 
the people select whom they wanted for officers in 
their place. He then appointed the parties selected 
by the people for office, and after his return to 
LeCompton, then the state capital, sent them their 
commissions. This was called the "Denver Com- 
promise, " but this compromise did not last long, 
as the following incidents prove that the Jayhawk- 
ers were still alive and full of mischief. 

Later on in the summer Montgomery's gang ran 
a load of hay up against the west^ide of the Pro- 
Slavery hotel and applied a lighted torch to it 
and rode away and then to keep anyone from 
extinguishing the fire kept up a continual firing at 
it until it burned up. The siding of the building- 
being thick oak lumber, the hay outside burned so 
quickly that it did not set the building on fire. 
Montgomery's men fired from long range with 
their Sharp rifles from a point west of the Star 
hotel, where there was a lot of timber to conceal 
them, but left immediately after the hay burned up. 

In July, 1858, while I was building my shop, 
and before it was completed, I had a shed at one 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 25 

side to work under and had got an order to make 
a coffin among other odd jobs that I had to do. 
This coffin was for a man by the name of Hart. I 
made the coffin of green walnut lumber and covered 
it with alpaca. In those days this was considered 
a fine job. I had stood the coffin up against the 
side of my shop. That night there came up a ter- 
rible thunder storm, and about midnight, thinking 
the coffin I had made might blow over and roll 
out from under the shed and get wet, and that I 
would have to re-cover it, to save it, so, deter- 
mined to see if the coffin was safe, I went boldly 
down to the shop. It was so dark I could only see 
when the lightning flashed. Upon arriving there 
I found that the coffin, as I feared, had blown over 
and I only got there in time to save it. It being 
very heavy, it was just as much as I could do to 
get it into a safe position. While there, all I 
thought of was to save my work, but when I got 
through and started away, the situation flashed 
on my mind and I became so frightened and shook 
so that I could hardly walk to my room. 

When I came to Fort Scott the Osage Indian 
tribe was located at Osage Mission, now St. Paul, 
some thirty-eight miles southwest from Fort Scott. 
The summer of '58, members of that tribe used to 
come to Fort Scott to sell their ponies and robes 
and do their trading. They would close out their 
stock at so many buttons, each button represent- 
ing one dollar in money, then they would buy 
what goods they wanted at one dollar's worth at 
a time until they had traded up all the bullion they 
had got for their ponies and robes. The bucks 



26 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

were fine specimens of large, healthy looking fel- 
lows; the squaws not so imposing looking as the 
bucks, but did all the work of 'taking charge of the 
goods and packing the ponies. The young bucks, 
or sports of the tribe, were pretty lively at times — 
especially when they got hold of fire-water. They 
were inveterate gamblers. I have seen them sit- 
ting on the banks of the Marmaton, playing poker, 
using tobacco, jack knives, belts, beads or any 
other article they might possess as stakes. 
Several times during the year 1858 to 1860, the 
Osages came and gave us their Indian dances on 
the fort parade, which is now called the Plaza. It 
was not long until a lot of our boys became expert 
Indian dancers, and at some of our jubilees, 
especially after fire-water had flown freely, went 
through all the phases of the Indian dance. They 
could discount the Indians, especially as to the 
length of time dancing. Bill Norway, Ken Wil- 
liams and myself were generally the leaders in 
these Indian dances, and George Clark beat the 
tom tom. These dances were held quite frequently, 
especially for the tender-feet that came among us. 
The first grave yard was one that the fort mili- 
tary had established for burying the dead of the 
fort, and was located at what is now the junction 
of West Wall and Lowman Streets. The McKay 
property was about the center of the yard. There 
were quite a number of graves in it when I came 
here. There was one in particular which drew 
my attention, it was marked with quite an elab- 
orate sand stone monument, and it was the 
grave of a sergeant born in Northumberland 




William Norway, born in New York state, came to 
Fort Scott June, 1859, now living in Santa Barbara, 
California. The leader of the Indian dances and the 
flrst elected county surveyor of Bourbon County, Kas. 



EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 27 

County, the same county I came from in Pennsyl- 
vania. There were a few citizens buried here 
after I came until about the middle sixties, when 
there was a burying- ground laid out where the 
National Cemetery is now. It was controlled by 
the Presbyterian Church and called the Presby- 
terian burying- ground, the citizens who had been 
buried in the fort grave yard who had friends 
were removed to this burying ground, and those 
who did not, their bones, with the soldiers buried 
there are still moldering under the ground in that 
part of the city, which is now called Quality Hill. 
The Presbyterian grave yard, as it was called, 
after the war broke out, was used by the govern- 
ment, for the burial of soldiers who died here, and 
by the end of the war was well patronized. Shortly 
after the war closed this burying- ground, with 
some addition to it, was bought by the govern- 
ment which located a National Cemetery there. 
It is to-day one of the finest cemeteries in the west. 
Citizens who were buried here were moved to the 
present Evergreen Cemetery, that was established 
in 18()5. I will here recite a little incident that 
occurred at the old Government Burying- Ground: 
A little hunch-back whom we used to call Hunch- 
back George had a shooting gallery in an un- 
linished building on the corner of National avenue 
and First street. He died suddenly in 1859, and 
we put him in the coffin in the clothes in which he 
died, and took him out for burial. When we got 
there they hadn't got the grave deep enough and 
we had to wait. Just as we had finished digging 
the grave and put the coffin in a party came and 



28 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

said: "Search George's pockets and see if he 
has any money." The secret of this was that 
some of his friends claimed that the parties 
George lived with had taken the money they knew 
he had. The parties denied it and said if he had 
any money it was in his pocket and would be 
buried with him, so we took the coffin out of the 
grave, opened it and searched his pockets and 
found no money, and put poor George back and 
covered him up, and his bones, if any are left, are 
now mouldering under some of the houses in that 
neighborhood. 

The body of an old Indian interpreter lies under 
the rear of the lot where Page's house stands 
today, as George Goodlander when he fenced that 
lot, found this grave on the lot, and he removed 
the board that contained the Indian's epitaph, 
and no one knew after that where the native Amer- 
ican's last resting place was. I judge this is not 
the only Indian grave over which the progress of 
civilization caused buildings to be erected. 

The first church service I knew of being held in 
Fort Scott was in the spring of '58. A southern 
Methodist circuit rider used to hold services 
occasionally in the old hospital building. One 
night I was at church, the room was well crowded, 
especially the front part of the room. Col. Arnett, 
the father of Mrs. Kendall and Jack Arnett, as 
most the old settlers remember, got up in the rear 
of the room and said: "You'ns in front revert 
back here where there is more room." It was but 
a few minutes after the old Colonel made this 



EA RLY DA\ 'N O F FOR T SCO TT 29 

remark that he dropped dead from heart failure. 
This incident broke up the meeting. Of course 
there was a chaplain in the army whom we used to 
hear preach occasionally. 

The families of Ransom, Clark, Haynes and 
Campbell, being of the Episcopal faith, and Chap- 
lain Reynolds of the army being an Episcopal 
clergyman, decided to organize an Episcopal 
church that summer. This, I think, was the first 
church organized here, aside from the South 
Methodist, which was in existence at the time. A 
few months later Aunt Jane Smith, Mrs. Alex Mc- 
Donald. Mrs. Jewell, and a few other ladies and 
one lone man, J. S. Cawkins, an old bachelor, 
organized the Presbyterian church. The hospital 
building was used for different church services 
until later years. 

Chaplain Reynolds in organizing the Episcopal 
church took George Clark, Willis Ransom, C. H. 
Haynes, Ben McDonald and myself, to make 
the five vestrymen needed to organize the 
church. We met in the old land office building, 
and as we came out we met Salmon P. Hall sit- 
ting on the steps of the land office. He said: 
"Boys, been having a game?" "No," said 
Willis Ransom, "We have just organized an Epis- 
copal church and us five are vestrymen." Hall 
said: "You are a hell of a set to start a church: 
you are better suited to run a saloon or variety 
show." I served as a vestryman, I think, from 
1858 till about 186.3, when they put me out and put 
E. M. Hulett in my place, (and by the way, I never 



30 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIOXS 

considered Hulett much of an improvement over 
myself. ) In the early days of the Episcopal 
church Mrs. C. H. Haynes took the lead the same 
as she does at the present time, and Aunt Jane 
Smith was the leader of the Presbyterian church. 
I suppose owing to the character of the first vestry 
Joe Ray and Jack White used to call it the 
"Whiskeypalian church." 

The only merchants that were in Fort Scott 
when I came were Colonel H. T. Wilson, and old 
Dr. Bills and Blake Little. Blake Little's store 
was in the old Commissary Building of the fort, 
and Dr. Bills' store was as I have described as 
being in the building that fronted on Market 
street and the fort grounds. Colonel Wilson had 
his store still in the old log building which he had 
occupied for years as a sutler's store, until 1859 
he built what we called in those days his big- 
store building on Market street. In those days 
these merchants used to go spring and fall to St. 
Louis, and sometimes to Philadelphia to buy their 
goods, and make their collections generally every 
six months, and pay for their goods at the same 
time. Goods in those days were hauled from Tip- 
ton, then the western terminus of the Missouri 
Pacific Railroad. The commercial traveler at 
that time in this western country was an unknown 
quantity. 

In the early days of Fort Scott the opportunities 
for following Dame Fashion, were not so great as 
they were in the states, especially for the ladies, 
as there was no such a thing as a fashionable 
dress-maker or millinerv establishment at which 




Mrs. C. H. Haynes, born in Ohio, came to Fort Scott, 
March 1858. The tirst married woman now livino; in 
Fort Scott that was married when she came to Fort 
Scott. The leading lady of the Episcopal Church when 
organized. 



EAliL y DA ys OF FORT SCOTT 31 

the ladies could get their dresses or bonnets made 
in the latest fashion of the day, The men were 
better supplied in that line, as Bob Blackett, 
who was the first tailor established here, would 
occasionally make a suit for the boys after his 
own fashion, having no fashion plates from which 
he could, but the clothes usually worn by us were 
hand-me-downs from the stocks of Colonel Wil- 
son's and Dr. Bill's stores which were made 
regardless of fashion, if they fit, all right, if not 
it was a go all the same. At this time hoop skirts 
were fashionable in the Eastern States. Our 
ladies were not going to be behind in style if they 
could help it, and as the old fashioned merchants 
here would not bring on the new style (hoop 
skirts) our ladies improvised a skirt after their 
own ideas, running clothes line into cloth six to 
eight inches apart and making it up into a skirt, 
then use enough starch to make it stand alone. 
They did not even stop at this. Some of the ladies 
in the country had the advantage of our town 
girls, as the grape vines were plenty in the woods. 
They would choose a good straight vine and sew 
three or four into their skirt, answering the pur- 
pose of the latest style crinoline, I remember well, 
at one of our dances two pretty country belles 
attended and wore their hoop vine skirts. They 
stood out so much that a young man would have 
to stoop over to shake hands with them, and to 
get near enough to kiss them was out of the ques- 
tion, as they would dance around and their grape 
vine hoops would hit a gentleman's limb, they 
would rebound in the opposite direction to such 



32 JIEMOIRS AXD UECOLLECTIOXS 

an extent, that anyone with whom they came in 
contact was in danger of being knocked down. 
The reader may think this grape vine hoop a 
hoax, but Ben McDonald and Charlie Drake will 
verify what I say, also Charlie Bull, as Charlie 
Bull took one of these country belles to a dance, 
a Miss Susie Foote, by the way, she was the 
belle of the ball that night, even though she was 
encircled with grape-vine's. Col. Wilson used to 
tell his lady customers that seven yards was 
enough for a dress, but they would say: "Colonel, 
that might have done some years ago, but how can 
we wear our hoop skirts with so little calico?" 
The Colonel would in surprise say: "Madam, I 
did not think of the late fashion you ladies have 
adopted in hooping yourselves in like a hogshead. " 
The bar of Fort Scott in 1858 and 1859 was 
composed of Squire Bullock, J. S. Symms, L. A. 
McCord, and Sam Williams, who claimed to be a 
lawyer to some extent. George A. Crawford was 
an attorney but did not pretend to practice. Law- 
yer Symms was a big lubberly fellow, some six 
feet three inches tall, and large in proportion. 
He was very slovenly in his dress and person. 
He had his office in the hospital building in a room 
that had been the hospital doctor's office. Con- 
nected to this room was a large closet. On a 
broad shelf in this closet Symms used to sleep 
with his clothes on, being too lazy to undress and 
redress himself. L. A. McCord was a small wiry 
man and was cracked or had wheels in his head 
on the subject of the stage and was continually 
spouting Shakespeare. So as to show himself oft" 




THE FOUR CiENERATIONS. 

Mrs. H. L. Wilson, her oldest daug-hter, Virginia, her 
grand daughter, Mrs. C. C. Nelson and great grand 
daughter, Elizabeth Adele Nelson. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 33 

he got a lot of us boys to consent to rehearse the 
act of Othello in the old hospital ward room, 
organized the boys and gave them their parts, 
reserving Othello to himself as star. He gave me 
the part of lago, and distributed the balance of 
the parts to Charley Bull, Burns Gordon, Jack 
White, and others, and as there was no lady to 
take the part of Desdemona, he decided that Ken 
Williams should take that part, he being the 
smallest man in town. Well, all McCord's theat- 
rical company amounted to was several rehearsals 
with him doing the most of it, and he never did 
get far enough with his company to give an enter- 
tainment. McCord did not stay here long; I think 
he returned east, and I don't believe he ever got 
any farther in his theatrical career, at least, I do 
not believe he ever got to be a popular tragedian, 
or I should have been likely to see his name on 
the bill boards in later years. 

The medical fraternity of Fort Scott when I 
came consisted of Dr. Osbun, Dr. Couch and Dr. 
Bills. Drs. Osbun and Couch were of the old 
school, and Dr. Bills of the new school. Dr. 
Bills did not get much business, as the people in 
those days when they were sick were sick and they 
wanted strong medicine when they wanted any. 
In 1859 the number was increased by the arrival 
of Dr. Redfield (by the way, I was his first 
patient), and in the fall of '61 Dr. Hepler came. 
Dr. Osbun died in the fall of '61, and all of the 
others have been dead for years. The first regular 
drug store was opened by Dave Andrix in a build- 
ing Dr. Osbun built in 1859, on the west side of 



34 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Main Street, near its junction with Market. The 
same building- was occupied in later years by 
Frank Boyle as a tobacco store. 

The first free negroes who lived in Fort Scott 
came in 1858, and were Jeff and Pete Slavins. 
Jeff was a ver}^ large, robust man, while Pete was 
a slim, dandy nigg-er, and aspired to the profes- 
sion of a barber. He opened up the first barber- 
shop in Fort Scott. I made him a barber-chair 
out of an old arm chair, and Pete opened up in 
great style as a first-class barber. But oh Lord, 
what sore faces we boys who patronized his shop 
did have. Jeff was a hard working, industrious 
negro, and a faithful servant to George Clark. 
He being very large we used to call him George 
Clark's bodyguard. Pete, the barber, became 
consumptive and died in a few years. Jeff lived 
here until some time in 1870, when he went to live 
on a farm in Linn County, where he may be living 
yet. He was in Fort Scott some few years ago. 

As to lodges there was when I came only the 
Masonic lodge in existence, and it did not do 
much towards getting new members until the year 
of 1860-61. I took the first degree in February of 
1861, and before they held another meeting the 
war broke out and the lodge did not have another 
meeting again till after the war, when Charley Van 
Fossen, Sheriff Wheaton and some more kindred 
spirits ran it for all it was worth. I never had 
any desire to go any farther into the mysteries of 
Masonry. The Odd Fellows lodge, I believe, was 
organized in the year of 1866. John Crow, S. A. 
Williams and Shannon and some others I think 



J'JA RL Y DA Y^ OF FORT ^COTT 35 

organized the lodge. In 18()() Charley Osbun, 
John Stewart and myself took the first degree of 
the lodge, but I never got any farther. A little 
later on Charley Osbun, Skidmore and myself 
joined the Redmen, but as I had seen enough of 
the Indian foolishness years before I had no use 
for this lodge. I found I had enough business to 
attend to both day and night without wasting any 
of my time with lodge affairs, so the only lodges or 
secret societies of which I have been a full fledged 
member was the Sons of Malta of 18()0 and the 
Hoo-Hoo of the present day. 

There was a vigilance committee in the country 
during the fall of 1858, and some time in the fall 
they arrested a man by the name of Ben Rice. He 
stole 'Squire Redfield's horse over in Missouri, 
some ten miles east of Fort Scott, and brought it 
to Kansas. Rice was caught with the horse in his 
possession, and was locked up in the Free State 
Hotel where he was held as a prisoner. On the 
morning of the 16th day of December, 1858, at 
day-break, about one hundred men belonging to 
the Jayhawker gang under Brown, Montgomery 
and Jenison, came in and released Ben Rice, 
robbed Blake Little's store, killed his son, John 
Little, and fired on other parties promiscuously. 
They ordered breakfast at the Pro- Slavery hotel 
and then were afraid to eat it for fear of poison. 
The night before they camped at Hell's Bend on 
the Marmaton and held a conference as to who 
should be leader. Brown, Montgomery or Jenison. 
and they elected Montgomery. This selection 
was a good thing for Fort Scott, for if Brown had 



36 MEMOIRS AND BECOLLECTIONS 

been leader he would have burned the town, being 
very vindictive, and Jenison would have robbed 
everybody, as that was his part. Montgomery 
was a very strong- abolitionist, but strictly 
honest in his views, cool in behavior and had 
good control of his men. Jenison was along and 
did some big stealing on his own hook. Brown 
would not come along because he could not be in 
command, but the same parties that were hung 
with Brown at Harper's Ferry, in Virginia, were 
with him here and did some loud talking, and said 
the time was not far distant when they would see 
Missouri overrun with blood. Their prophecy 
was not long in coming true, — a few years later. 

At the time the above raid took place I was 
boarding with Alex McDonald, who lived in 
the west end of what was called the Blair house 
on the Plaza, and was sleeping in the parlor in 
the front of the house. Hearing a noise I looked 
out and saw parties arresting Governor Ransom. 
He lived in the east end of the same house. I 
awakened Alex. McDonald, and Ben McDonald 
and Jack White, who slept upstairs. I told Alex 
what was going on, and he thereupon opened the 
front door to look out ; he had no more than done 
so when a party behind a tree, in front of the 
house, said to him: "Surrender!" Alex said: 
"Be damned if I do," and stepped in and closed 
the door. As he did so, the party put a Sharp's 
rifle ball through the center of the door, but as 
Alex had stepped to one side of the door, the ball 
did not hit him. I was standing at the time in the 
door leading from the parlor to the hall. The 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 37 

bullet struck in the hard studding of the partition 
and rebounded and fell on the floor of the hall. 
The party who shot at McDonald returned to the 
crowd and remarked that he had "plugged one 
border ruffian." This party proved afterwards 
to have been Col. Jenison. After this shooting I 
looked towards the Free State Hotel and saw a big 
crowd there ; so Ben, Jack and I concluded to go 
down and see what was going on. When we got 
there we walked right into the crowd and the first 
thing we knew we were among a lot of the Fort 
Scott boys who were surrounded by a lot of the 
Jayhawkers with their Sharp's rifles. Bill Bent- 
ley and Bill Dennison said, "Boys, I guess you 
are prisoners with the balance of us." I said, "I 
guess not, " and remarked to Ben and Jack, "Let's 
go back to the house." We started, but the Jay- 
hawkers stopped Ben and Jack but did not stop 
me. This caused the boys often to joke me about 
being in sympathy with the Jayhawkers. The 
Jayhawkers shot at different parties that morning 
and among others a man by the name of Ed 
Marble. As he was going across the Plaza they 
battered away at him but did not hit him. This 
caused Joe Ray to make the remark that the Jay- 
hawkers were very playful that morning, as they 
were shooting at Marbles on the Plaza. This 
wound up the Jayhawk troubles for 1858. 

The shooting of Jenison at McDonald during 
this raid came very near ending in a duel the fol- 
lowing year. A man by the name of Knox, 
express agent of the stage line, met Jenison at 
Osawatomie, where Jenison lived at that time. 



38 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

He told Jenison the man he shot at was Alex 
McDonald, and that McDonald had said he would 
shoot him on sight. So about a year afterwards, 
as Alex was passing through Osawatomie, Jenison 
met him and said he was ready now to be shot. 
Now, whether Alex ever said he would shoot Jeni- 
son or not, they made up, and when the war broke 
out and Jenison came to Fort Scott as colonel of 
the Fifth Kansas, Alex and he became good 
friends, and associated together considerably in 
the campaigns south of here, while Alex was 
a sutler in the army. Jenison after the war fol- 
lowed the life of a sport, and had a sporting 
house in Leavenworth and later on in Joplin and 
Galena. He made money and spent it freely and 
was a very charitable man in the later years 
of his life, giving to the churches and the poor 
and died a few years ago in Leavenworth. 

At this time all the citizens of Fort Scott were 
either pro-slavery or free state democrats, except 
Tom Roberts and Old Roach, who being the only 
republicans, naturally were quite intimate. Old 
Roach and his wife used to quarrel a great deal, 
and at one time Roberts fixed up a compromise 
between them, but it did not last long, as one 
morning Old Roach came over to the hotel all 
covered with blood and some of the boys said, 
"Roach, what is the matter?" He said, "the old 
woman hit me over the head with a rolling-pin," 
which was the effect of misplaced confidence in 
Tom Roberts ' compromise. Mrs. Roach and her 
daughter were the washerwomen for all of us 
boys. We used to mark our shirts with a stitch 



Alex McDonald, born in Pennsylvania, came to 
Fort Scott in December, 1857. Now living in New- 
York City. The man Col. Jenison shot at and who 
in company with Ed Bowen brought the first saw 
mill to southern Kansas. 



EARL r DA YS OF FORT SCOTT ^9 

of different colored thread. Fort Roach, as we 
used to call the house the Roach family lived in, 
was a resort for the boys where they danced on 
the puncheon floor. Roach and his family were 
from Posey County, Indiana, and the music at the 
dance was usually to the tune of "Hell on the 
Wabash." Sometimes these dances would last all 
night, and all the next day. I have known of one 
dance that lasted two nights and one day. 

About all the people who \vere here in 1858 when 
I came, who are now living, are present citizens. 
Squire Margrave, Mrs. Mary Brumbley, (nee 
Little), G. F. Drake, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Haynes, 
T. W. Tallman, Mrs. C. W. Goodlander, (nee 
Wilson), C. H. Osbun, Mrs. T. F. Robley, (nee 
Wilson), Mr. and Mrs. A. H.Campbell, (nee Smith, ) 
E. L. Marble, and B. P. McDonald, and to my 
knowledge others now living are Alex McDonald 
and Jim Jones, of New York, Ed Smith of Cali- 
fornia, Bill Dennison, of Vernon County, Mo., 
Mrs. Allison, (nee Williams) of Beloit, Kansas, 
George Clark, Ypsilanti, Mich., Charley Bull, of 
White Oaks, N. M., Bill Linn of Barton County, 
Mo., and Willis Ransom and wife of St. Joseph, 
Michigan. 

As Marshal Little had been killed in the Jay- 
hawk raid of December IGth, 1858, Col. Campbell 
was appointed United States Marshal for this 
place. So the fore part of January, 1859, he 
organized three marshal's posses with John 
Hamilton, Alex. McDonald and himself as captains. 
This was done by order of the government, think- 
ing it would be the most effective way to keep 



40 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

quiet in this territory. John Hamilton had been 
first sergeant in the regular army and was well 
posted in military tactics, and he used to put us 
through the drill on the fort parade ground. 
There was a guard posted at three different points 
at night, one east of the fort grounds and one 
west, and one at what was called Fort Roach, 
where the Roach family lived, which is now the 
northwest corner of National Avenue and First 
Street. This at that time was considered a great 
distance out and most of us did not like to be sent to 
that post, but preferred the posts east and west of 
the fort, especially the one near the building on 
on the west side, where Race Harkness' saloon 
was, so as to drop in and warm and take refresh- 
ments. The upstairs of the old hospital building 
was used as guard house, where those who were 
not on guard would keep up a pretty lively time 
at night. One night there was an alarm about 11 
o'clock that the Jayhawkers were crossing at the 
Military Ford, near the mouth of Mill Creek. 
Captain McDonald was ordered to take his com- 
pany down there. At that time there w^as a road 
in the bottom, to the Fort, through a dense timber 
and undergrowth, so that you could not see twenty 
feet from the road. I was a member of McDonald 's 
company, and when we came near the ford we 
heard some parties on the bank of the river. As 
we marched up toward the party McDonald, in a 
loud military demand said, "Who is there, friend 
or foe? " when lo, and behold I it was nothing but 
an old couple camped for the night, and Captain 
McDonald's company scared them from their 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCO TT 4 1 

peaceful slumbers. McDonald marched his com- 
pany back and reported to Marshal Campbell that 
all was quiet on the Marmaton. This marshal's 
organization was kept up during the winter and 
summer of 1859. During the same time a vigi- 
lance committee was kept up in the county. Early in 
the fall between the marshal's posse in town and 
the vigilance committee in the country there were 
several parties who were arrested for horse 
stealing. Marshal Campbell ordered them to be 
taken to Lawrence under guard selected from 
Captain Hamilton's and Captain McDonald's 
companies. Capt. Hamilton and Capt. McDonald 
were ordered to take charge of said guard while 
Marshal Campbell took charge of what was left 
of both companies to protect the town in the 
absence of Hamilton and McDonald. All went 
well with Captain Hamilton and party until they 
reached the Wakarusha bottom south of Lawrence 
when Jim Lane, who had been informed of the 
coming of this posse and prisoners, raised the 
cry that the notorious border ruffian Hamilton 
was coming with Free State men prisoners, and 
he (Lane), raised a mob and went out and met 
Hamilton and his guard at the edge of tow^n and 
released the prisoners and marched Capts. Hamil- 
ton and McDonald and their men into Lawrence 
as prisoners. It was soon explained and Lane 
ordered Hamilton and party released and they 
returned home quite crestfallen. This was the end 
of the marshal's posse, as at this time there were 
some United States regulars sent here under the 
command of old Gen. Harney, to back up Marshal 
Campbell. 



42 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

April 18, 1859, was the first city election. Joe 
Ray was elected mayor for two years : Alex 
McDonald was elected treasurer; Sam Williams, 
clerk: Uncle Billy Smith and two others, council- 
men — I don't remember their names — and Charley 
Bull, marshal. Ray, during his term of office, 
pre-empted the land that was subsequently^ used 
for the town site, for the town company. During 
Joe's term of mayorship in the summer of '59, Col. 
Jim Lane came here to make a speech on the ruling- 
troubles of the times, and a meeting was called, 
and Joe, being mayor, we claimed it was his place 
to introduce Jim Lane. Now, Joe disliked Lane 
so much that it was a bitter pill for Joe to swallow. 

The meeting was called in front of the land office, 
a building that stood where Brown's lumber yard 
is now located. There was a large two-story porch 
in front of said building, and this porch was 
crowded with people, and a large crowd on the 
ground in front of the building. Joe being of a 
very timid nature and being very much confused 
in his position of chairman, and intending to ad- 
vise some of the people to leave the porch, he 
blunderingly reversed what he intended by remark- 
ing, "There being so many on the ground some of 
you will please come upon the porch where there 
is more room." This started the people to laugh- 
ter, and confused him more, and again gathering 
courage, and just as he started to make his speech 
introducing the speaker, (Jim Lane), a large mule, 
attached to a wagon near by, made an unearthly 
bray; this again upset Joe, and when the mule 
had finished he said: "Mr. Mule, if you wish to 




Joe Ray, born in Michigfan, came to Fort Scott in 
1857. The first Mayor of Fort Scott. Died Feb- 
ruary 15, 1869. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 43 

monopolize this meeting", I think you are more 
suitable than I am to introduce the honorable 
gent, so I will retire in your favor." This was 
the outcome of Joe's first attempt as mayor to in- 
troduce a speaker. As I have said before, Joe was 
the wag of the town. He made a great many witty 
remarks and committed a great many blunders. 

There was more or less building during the year 
of 18o9, and the number of inhabitants increased. 
I built that year a large house for Ben Riggins on 
a farm east of town. Later, Dr. Couch bought 
this farm, and I think the Widow Couch lives now 
in this same house. The same year I built a store 
house for Alex. McDonald on the corner of Wall 
Street and Scott Avenue, where Nelson & Weedon's 
grocery now stands. The latter part of '59 and 
the early part of '60 Col. Wilson had a large 
store built about where John Glunz's building now 
is, and 'Squire Margrave built a building for 
saloon purposes about where Aronson's store now 
is. This was the first building built for a saloon 
and sporting purposes in the town. The front part 
was used as a saloon and the rear part for the 
"national game." The first keg beer that was 
brought to Fort Scott was distributed to the boys 
from Margrave's saloon and was the great event 
of the day. In the summer of 1860, when the winds 
were so hot you had to get in a room and close 
the doors to keep cool, we mostly selected Mar- 
grave's saloon for this purpose and filled up on 
cold beer. The drouth of 1860 has passed into 
history as all know. As a sample of it I will say 
the water in the Marmaton did not run over the 



44 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

fording places for eig-hteen months. About the 
only thing that grew, to my knowledge, was 
sorghum cane — about the only crop that season, 
except some rattle snakes, I raised on my claim. 
I had planted several acres of potatoes that spring 
and about the time I thought there should be some 
potatoes I was going past the place with Dr. Red- 
field on his way home from seeing a patient from 
Dry wood. I said "Doc, come let's get a good 
mess of potatoes. We opened up a half dozen 
hills and we found in three of the hills each a 
rattle snake, and in the others we found nothing. 
My potato crop was a failure. Dr. Redfield was 
somewhat like my friend Aikman. When he went 
to see a patient in the country he always liked to 
call some one to go as company. 

The year 1859 brought quite a number of good 
citizens to Fort Scott, about all free state demo- 
crats. Among the arrivals were Gen. Blair and 
family, Robert Stewart and family, Mr. Jenkins 
and family, William Dorey, Old Man Dillon and 
wife, and boys, John, Joe and Tute. (Mr. Dillon 
succeeded Col. Campbell as landlord of the Free 
State Hotel), Uncle Johnny Miller and wife and 
daughters, Emma and Anna, Col. Judson and 
sons, Charley and Bill, George Reynolds and wife 
and Isaac Stadden. Among the early arrivals of 
1859 were the first foreign emigration Fort Scott 
had — Pete Smith, a small Swede, and Joran Dock- 
stead, a large Norwegian. They were carpenters 
by trade, and they concluded to build a double 
house and aimed to pattern after one of the officers' 
quarters of the fort. About all the lumber that 




William Margrave, born in Missouri, came to 
Fort Scott November, 1854. Now living-. Has been 
a Justice of the Peace from the above date until now. 
Has the honor of holding that office longer than any 
other man in Kansas. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 45 

could be obtained was from the saw mill of 
McDonald & Bowen, and these foreign boys to get 
what lumber they needed, had to take all kinds 
and all shapes they could pick up around the mill, 
and they carried a great part of it on their backs 
from the mill, as they were very economical. The 
building was a sight when completed and a regular 
curiosity, and was named the Avalanche. Dock- 
stead left a few years later for Colorado, and Pete 
Smith married the widow of Capt. Rogers, of Cato, 
this county, where he conducted a general store for 
the last thirty years, and I believe he died in the 
fall of 1899. 

Fort Scott by this time was getting to be quite a 
society place, as the following invitations to a 
cotillion party, July 22, 1859, and a New Year's 
ball in January, 1860, will show: — 



COTILLION PARTY. 

Miss Elizabeth Wilson : 

The pleasure of your company is respectfully 
solicited to attend a Cotillion Party at the Western 
Hotel. Messrs. Linn & Harris, Proprietors, Fort 
Scott, K. T., on Friday evening, July 22d, 1859. 
invitation committee. 
Burns Gordon, J. W. Buchanan, 

J. J. Farley, L. A. McCord, 

E. A. Smith, W. C. Dennison, 

B. P. McDonald, A. H. Campbell. 

MANAGERS. 

E. W. Finch, Joe Ray, 

John Dillon, A. R. Allison, 

C. F. Drake, C. W. Goodlander. 

MUSICIANS. 

Messrs. Mottram & Gee. 



46 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

NEW YEAR'S BALL. 
Miss E. C. Wilson: — 

The pleasure of your company is respectfully 
solicited to attend a New Year's Ball at the West- 
ern Hotel, Fort Scott, K. T., W. I. Linn, Propri- 
etor, on Monday evening, January 2d, 1860. 

COMMITTEE ON INVITATION. 

Joseph Ray, B. P. McDonald, 

C. F. Drake, John Dillon, 

H. Harkness, W. C. Dennison, 

Isaac Stadden, John Denton, 

Moses Fisk, Jos. Custard, 

J. M. Hoffnagle, W. H. Norway. 

COMMITTEE ON ARRANGEMENTS. 

A. J. Waterhouse, R. L. Phillips, 

Wm. Bentley, J- W. Buchanan, 

T. M. Williams, Wm. Judson, 

C. W. Goodlander, Jos. Williams. 

A. R. Allison. 

FLOOR MANAGERS. 

E. W. Finch, S. B. Gordon. 

Wm. Gallaher, E. A. Smith, 

Charles Bull, Chas. Dimon. 

Music by the ^'Fort Scott Quadrille Band." 
These invitations are fac-similes, now in the 
hands of my wife, preserved by her as her first 
invitations to a dance, at the age of ten years. 
These two parties were the first public dances held 
in Fort Scott. At that time a girl of ten years 
and a grandmother of eighty were eligible to be 
invited to a ball, in order to equal the number of 
the opposite sex. 



i:a rl y da ys of for t sco tt 47 

The tirst Fourth of July celebration that was 
held in this locality to my knowledge, was on the 
Fourth of July of 1859 on the Custard farm, south 
of the Drywood, just ten miles south of Fort Scott, 
and some two miles west of the Missouri line. 
The Custards were a very prominent family in 
those days, and consisted of father and mother, 
three sons and one daughter, who lived on the 
farm at that time. Nancy, an old maid, and 
Chauncey, William and James, the boys, were 
quite good singers, and the family were quite 
social. The boys used to frequently come to Fort 
Scott to show oflP their talent, and having been 
entertained by the Fort Scott people often, they 
wished to return the compliment, and they asked 
all who wished to do so to come down there and 
have a Fourth of July celebration. So quite 
a number of us concluded to go down and cele- 
brate the Fourth of July that year. Col. Judson 
was to be the leader and took charge of the gang, 
and we had Harry Hartman to provide the tire- 
works and firewater. When we got there we found 
the people for miles around had gathered from 
across the line in Missouri and in Kansas. Col. 
Judson delivered the oration and the Custards 
sang their songs, and then we formed in a proces- 
sion, led by Col. Judson and Nancy Custard. Just 
as the procession moved, by accident or otherwise, 
our fireworks caught fire and it was fun to see how 
the procession broke ranks and scattered in all 
directions to evade the sky rockets, Roman can- 
dles, whirli-gigs and serpents that were charging 
in all directions. Our fireworks for night enter- 



48 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

tainment having been destroyed and being disap- 
pointed in having a night celebration, it enabled 
us to get home early in the evening instead of at 
midnight or in the morning. We all came home, 
having felt that we had celebrated our first Fourth 
of July in Kansas, and felt so very patriotic after 
hearing the patriotic songs of the Custard family, 
that we celebrated all the way home, and the next 
day we all belonged to the "big head " family and 
wanted no more Fourth of July for a year. 

The first county fair that I attended after I came 
to Fort Scott was in the fall of 1859, and was held 
at Nevada, Mo., — I think the first fair that was 
ever held in Vernon County. Quite a lot of boys 
went over from Fort Scott. Among them as I 
remember were Joe Ray, Charley Bull, Water- 
house, Burns Gordon, and the Custard boys from 
Drywood, who went over and opened up a concert 
with a view of making some money out of the 
people attending the fair. They had Waterhouse 
of our crowd tend the door, so consequently we 
all got in free. This fair was held on Old Tommy 
Austin's farm, which at that time joined the town 
of Nevada on the south. On the trip coming home 
Charley Bull got Joe Ray to eat some green per- 
simmons ( any one who has eaten a green persim- 
mon knows the effect of puckering the mouth, and 
drinking water afterwards that it increases the 
pucker). Joe not knowing the effect, the balance 
of the boys laughed up their sleeves. Joe ate the 
persimmons and then began to cuss, something he 
was an adept at. Charley Bull yelled out "Joe, you 
are poisoned, drink some water or you will die. " 



j:a rl y da ys of for t scott 49 

Joe rushed to some water near by and drank a 
good supply. This caused his mouth to pucker so 
much more that he could not even cuss. If ever a 
man was mad, Joe was for the balance of the day. 
At that time between here and Nevada on the west 
bank of the Drywood lived old Squire Redtield 
and wife and children, — this was a sort of a half 
way stopping place. Squire Redfield had settled 
there way back in the thirties, and had been a 
missionary to the Indians in this section of 
Missouri. He and his wife were a fine old couple. 
I should judge they were way up in the sixties. 
This same Squire Redfield w^as an uncle of the 
late Dr. Redfield, who practiced in Fort Scott 
from 1860 till some years ago, when he died, 
whose widow and children are still in Fort Scott. 
At the time this fair was held at Nevada it was 
not much of a town and what there was of it was 
mostly some frame buildings around the square. 
The building the Custards held their concert in 
was the court house, a small two story building 
on the south west corner of the square. The old 
town of Nevada was destroyed by fire during the 
war, but to-day is a prosperous town, well built. 

In 18G0 I built a residence for Alex McDonald 
on a lot w^here the Union Block now stands. This 
was the first residence built of a'ny pretensions, 
outside of the government quarters and at that 
time was considered the palace of Fort Scott. 
Alex made this residence a welcome place for his 
friends, and many lively times were had within its 
walls. New Year's calls in those days were quite 
a fad, and what few families were here always 



50 31EM0IRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

kept open house. This house of Alex's is the one 
where a lot of us were calling on New Year's Day, 
when a young tinner by trade, now a staid banker 
of Fort Scott, rode his horse up the steps and into 
the dining room, took his drink from the hostess 
on horseback, rode around the table and out the 
same way he came in and did no damage to glass- 
ware or anything else. He claimed that John 
Robinson, circus rider, was not in it with him. 

When I was building this house I concluded to 
get some yellow pine flooring from Van Winkle's 
mills in northwest Arkansas. I sent teams for 
the lumber, having added enough to make good 
measure to allow for the manufacture. When the 
lumber came and I went to use it I found it had 
run short. I made complaint and they said they 
had sent me the full amount I had ordered. After 
investigating I found that the way they measured 
lumber was face and one edge, making a board 
one by six by twelve feet long, have seven feet 
instead of six as I understood board measure. 
They measured thick and thin lumber the same 
way. A two by six, twelve foot, they would make 
eight foot, while standard board measure would 
be twelve feet. They sold the thick lumber enough 
higher to make the price in proportion to the inch. 
I understand this is grindstone measurement, side 
and edge, so old Van must have been in the grind- 
stone business. 

New Year's calls in Fort Scott, in those days 
were hard to beat for genuine hospitality, and 
were well kept up until the close of the war. In 
those days there were no cranks to dictate to the 




Alex McDonald's Residence, built in 1860, as it 
looks today. Stood where the Union Block now 
is. The house the staid Fort Scott banker rode 
his horse into to make his New Year call on Mrs. 
Alex McDonald. 



EA RL Y DA'i 'S OF FOR T SCO TT 5 1 

majority what they should do. Everybody was 
honest and paid their debts and did as they 
thought best. 

In speaking- of New Year's calls brings to ray 
mind a Christmas call the boys made in the early 
sixties. There had been a dance Christmas eve 
and the boys having kept up the dance until four 
o'clock in the morning, some of them concluded 
they would make an early morning Christmas 
call. At that time there were three barbers here 
who were good musicians, so they got the barbers 
up and started out at early daylight and gave 
their friends an early serenade. Every one they 
serenaded would join in the procession until we 
had gone the rounds, when they adjourned to the 
Wilder House about nine o'clock, to partake of a 
repast that had been ordered prepared for the 
crowd. I have known of Christmas serenades 
through the day and night, and Christmas dinners 
but never knew before or since of a Christmas 
breakfast. 

The late fall of '59 was very quiet as regards 
Jayhawk troubles, and as we needed some excite- 
ment and amusement, Wyllys Ransom, Salmon P. 
Hall and George Clark proposed to establish the 
Sons of Malta Lodge, which at that time and pre- 
vious thereto in New York and eastern cities was 
quite a rage. Wyllys Ransom had secured one of 
the rituals of the lodge, so in November, 1859, 
Wyllys Ransom, Salmon P. Hall, George Clark, 
a lawyer by the name of Symms, B. P. McDonald, 
William Gallagher and myself, making seven in 
number, necessary for charter members, perfected 



52 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

an organization. This lodge was kept up until 
April, 1860, when we had succeeded in initiating 
about every man that was in town. At the closing 
up they had a torch-light procession and marched 
around the Fort parade ground several times, each 
member carrying a roll of paper and then marched 
to the center of the parade ground and after a 
speech by Wyllys Ransom, who was the grand 
master, explaining that the object of the lodge had 
been accomplished, and for fear the outside world 
might get hold of the records, they would now burn 
them, he touched a match to his roll and threw it 
on the ground and all the balance in solemnity 
marched around and threw their rolls into the fire 
and the records were destroyed. Then they marched 
back to the hall and finished up with a dance, 
where the ladies, young and old, were to meet us 
after the burning of the records. All members of 
the lodge wore black dominoes, and the dance was 
a big success. The dances were generally plain 
quadrilles to the tunes of "Hell on the Wabash" 
and "Arkansaw Traveller," and sundry tunes 
that all were familiar with. The dance wound up 
with refreshments in Race Harkness' restaurant 
which was kept in the first story of the same build- 
ing where the dance was held. The Sons of Malta 
Lodge was organized in the early '50 's after the 
failure of General Lopez's invasion of Cuba and 
was claimed and supposed to take revenge on his 
enemies who prevented his successful invasion of 
Cuba. For the benefit of the uninitiated I will give 
some portions of the ritual. First, the room was 
prepared with the officers and members sitting 



EA HL y DA ys OF FORT SCOTT 53 

around in place with the customary mask. In the 
center of the room was a skeleton laid on a table, 
with two persons dressed as soldiers guarding the 
same, one walking one way on one side and the 
other one, the other way on the opposite side. All 
officers and members were dressed in black domi- 
noes and masks. Wyllys Ransom was grand mas- 
ter, J. S. Symms and Salmon P. Hall, his aides. 
Ransom, Hall and Symms were all large men and 
looked very imposing in their costumes, especially 
Symms, who was a man six feet six, and looked 
like a mountain. The victim to be initiated was 
brought in, not blind-folded, so he could see all. 
The first degree was very solemn, and the words 
the victim heard, impressed on him the fact that 
the step he was about to take was a very serious 
affair, and he found it so by the time he got 
through. After the victim was taken out all things 
in the room were changed and prepared for action. 
The victim was then brought in blind-folded and 
taken before the grand master who put several 
questions to him. Among others he was asked 
if he was going to attack Cuba whether he would 
lie and wait and steal in upon it, or would 
make a bold dash. The victim generally said he 
would lie and wait and steal in upon it. This 
remark would be taken up by the recorder, who, 
speaking through a large trumpet, would say, 
"He lies and steals, let it be recorded, " — all mem- 
bers saying the same in solemn voice. Next the 
grand master would say, "Try his marching qual- 
ities." The victim was then marched around the 
room and every object imaginable thrown in his 



54 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

way, so that by the time he got around the room 
he began to think the subjection of Cuba a hard 
undertaking. Next we would try the candidate's 
climbing qualities, as there would be more or less 
of that to do in scaling forts. A ladder was put 
in position, one end on the floor and the other end 
on a high box, some five or six feet high. A mem- 
ber on each side of the victim guarded him to 
catch him in case he fell off. 

It was a hard struggle for him to keep on the 
rounds of the ladder and step over bayonets pur- 
posely placed for him to climb over. He would 
reach the box about exhausted. While standing 
on the box to rest before the next ordeal the grand 
master gave a lecture on the importance of know- 
ing how to swim in case he got shipwrecked going 
to Cuba. After this lecture he was told there was 
a large tank of water before him and he must jump 
in and show his swimming qualities. Now, the 
supposed tank was a large tarpaulin some twenty 
feet square and held by the members. As the vic- 
tim jumped into the tarpaulin he was tossed up 
several times, as high as the ceiling. After going- 
through several more trials, too numerous to men- 
tion, he was pronounced a fit recruit to attack 
Cuba, and he passed through the ordeal so well 
he was eligible to a seat of honor. He was taken 
to a seat and told to sit down. This seat of honor 
was a wet sponge about the size of a half bushel. 
After this he was told to sign the register which 
proved to be an order on Race Harkness' restau- 
rant for a supper for the members of the lodge. 
Then he was told to read the bv-laws. A card some 




Major Wyllys Hansom, born in Vermont, came to 
Fort Scott, December, 1857, Now living- in St. 
Joseph, Mich. The founder of Sons of Malta Lodge 
in Fort Scott, and who originated the court of un- 
common pleas for the celebrated Victim Cripen and 
(^'awkin's mock trial. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 55 

twelve inches in diameter was shown him. The 
card had a large figure of an eye in the center and 
around the circle of the card had letters placed as 
follows, — by reading one way, using the eye in the 
center it read, ''I am a Son of Malta." then read- 
ing the other way, using the eye in the center, the 
words read, "I am sold." At one of these initi- 
ations A. R. Allison and Race Harkness were the 
victims. Harkness was a man that weighed about 
250 pounds, while Allison weighed 125. Harkness 
was tossed in the tarpaulin first, and being so 
heavy the members were not able to throw him 
very high : Allison coming next and being so light 
and using the same exertions they did with Hark- 
ness they threw him up against the ceiling some 
fourteen feet high and broke his arm. Each victim 
after being initiated always did his best to get 
some new one to join so as to get his revenge. The 
lodge was a grand success for the winter's amuse- 
ment. 

The first saw mill built here by citizens was 
about the first of January, 1858. It w'as the one I 
have mentioned heretofore, having been built by 
Alex McDonald and Ed Bowen. The government 
had a water mill over on Mill Creek where it cut 
all the lumber used in building the fort. Ed Bowen 
only stayed here about a year and went back east, 
and some time after Jim Fiske's death he became 
superintendent of the Erie Railroad. I do not 
know if he is still living or not. This is the saw 
mill at which Joe Ray was fireman, and Ben 
McDonald carried off slabs. After Bowen left, 
this mill was sold to Old Man Jenkins and Charley 



56 3IEM0IR8 AND RECOLLECTIOXS 

Haynes, and I think later Charley Haynes bought 
it, and later on he sold it to Uncle Johnny Miller. 
The mill was moved from the location where it was 
first built on to the banks of the Marmaton. just 
opposite the mouth of Mill Creek. It was different 
from the mill nowadays, as we always got less 
lumber than what the logs scaled which we took 
there to be sawed. In the year 1859 and '60 I 
bought some log-s of John J. Stewart and took 
them to this mill to be sawed to lumber, and I did 
not get back as much lumber as the logs scaled. 
I kicked, and the proprietor of the saw mill said, 
"Why, Charley, you must not expect as much 
lumber as the logs scaled, as one-fourth of it goes 
into saw dust. " Charley Osbun and John J. Stew- 
art had also taken some logs there to be sawed, 
and I asked what they got back in lumber. They 
told me the same story, so I accepted the situation. 
I did not know as much about the lumber business 
then as I do today. I have had some experience 
of late years in the saw mill business, and I find 
there should be from ten to fifteen per cent, more 
lumber measured from the logs than the logs 
scaled calls for. I think now there was swindle at 
that saw mill forty years ago. 

In the summer of '60 there was a dearth of 
excitement and amusement and as Ransom, Hall 
and Clark were always ready for fun, it was sug- 
gested that as an old man by the name of Cripen 
had recently opened up a pie, candy and nut store 
on the east side of the Plaza, and as he was more 
or less disturbed by some one purloining his 
goods, he should complain to Ransom and Hall. 



KA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 57 

The old man was a little off in the upper story, 
but he made his complaint and Ransom suggested 
that some one be arrested and we have a mock 
trial for amusement: this was agreed to and it 
w^as decided to arrest Bachelor Cawkins. Cawkins 
was arrested and court was established w^ith Sal- 
mon P. Hall as judge, Wyllys Ransom as clerk, 
George Clark as sheriff, and George A. Craw^ford 
as prosecuting attorney, while Lawyer Symms and 
Lawyer McCord were ( 'ripen 's law^yers. There 
was a jury empaneled, and the paraphernalia of 
a first-class court established. The trial lasted a 
week, as it was only held at night, and as Judge 
Hall and Ransom had charge of the land office 
here they told Cripen they had to attend to their 
land offices during the day. There w^ere quite a 
number of witnesses for Cripen, but only a few for 
Caw^kins. The oath that Judge Hall had the wit- 
nesses take was as follows:— ''You sw'ear you will 
not tell the truth, or nothing like the truth, or if 
you could you would not tell the truth, so help 
you God." As Cripen was partly deaf he did not 
know the difference. Jack White, Bill Bentley, 
Joe Ray, Charley Bull and myself were summoned 
by Cripen as his witnesses. Cripen charged that 
one Cawkins, he had reasons to believe, was from 
time to time stealing his pies. Cawkins was a 
crank on pie. Jack White said Cawkins grumbled 
at the boarding house because they did not have 
pie: Bill Bentley testified that Cawkins said he 
must hunt up a boarding house where they had 
pies to eat ; Joe Ray said that Cawkins asked him 
to take him out to some of his farmer friends in 



58 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

pumpkin season so he could get some pumpkin pie. 
Charley Bull said he heard Cawkins make the 
remark, "If I only had pies like my mother used 
to make ! " Up to this time the evidence was purely 
circumstantial and it looked as if they had no case 
ag-ainst Cawkins, so they called me up as the last 
witness. I testified that one morning before day- 
light I was going to my shop to make an early 
start to make a coffin and as I passed Cripen's 
store I saw Cawkins coming out with pies in his 
hand. This was considered conclusive evidence 
against Cawkins. Mr. Cawkins produced no 
witnesses, and being an old blue-stocking Presby- 
terian he said he considered his word of honor 
as an off-set to the gang of liars that testified 
against him, so after three nights of argument by 
the lawyers the case went to the jury, and the jury 
brought in a verdict that Cawkins set up the 
drinks for the court, the attorneys, jury and wit- 
nesses at Race Harkness' saloon, which was in 
the basement of the building where the court was 
held, and also to send in, the coming fall, when 
pumpkins were ripe, a load of them to Cripen to 
make his winter's supply of pies. The attorneys 
made some master arguments and all in all it was 
an enjoyable week for the gang. So ended victim 
Cripen's mock trial. 

In the summer of 1860 ground was broken at 
Kansas City for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, to 
work east and connect with that line, whose 
western terminus at that time was Tipton, Mo. 
This breaking of ground at Kansas City was to 
be celebrated with an old fashioned Missouri 



KAHL V DA rs OF FORT SCOTT 51) 

barbecue. Col. Judson suggested to me that we 
go up to the celebration for some recreation. 
Instead of taking the stage transportation we 
drove a private team. We took what was called 
the state line road, which passed through Barnes- 
ville and Trading Post, Kansas, and West Point 
and Little Santa Fe, Mo., being the only towns, 
if you might call them that, between here and 
Kansas City. We stopped at the old Gillis House 
on the levee at Kansas City. The barbecue was 
held in what is now^ called East Bottom, which at 
that time was covered with heavy timber. There 
was a great crowd there for those days, and the 
barbecue was a grand success, as the old Mis- 
sourians were noted for getting up first-class 
barbecues. Three men with whom I got person- 
ally acquainted in after years took an active 
part in this demonstration. They were Col. Van 
Horn, Dr. A. Abeal and Col. Coates, who in after 
years built the Coates House in Kansas City. 
Kansas City at that time was mostly on the levee, 
and scattered from there south. I remember well 
between Main Street and the west blutt" was 
scarcely built on, here and there a house among 
the timber that covered that part of the present 
town. There were parties who had gone from 
Fort Scott to Kansas City to live and I wanted to 
see them and was told they lived up on Broadway. 
After meandering through the timber I found the 
house on the side of a hill surrounded by timber. 
I should judge this was about Eighth or Ninth 
and Broadway. Col, Judson, after we had taken 
in the sights of Kansas Citv concluded to go to 



60 MEMOIRS AXD RECOLLECTIONS 

Leavenworth. We took boat from Kansas City to 
that place. We found Leavenworth much more 
of a town than Kansas City and more lively, 
especially along- the levee, as there were three 
boats at the levee to one at the levee at Kansas 
City. Steamboating- on the Missouri River at 
that date was flourishing, and it was not until 
some five or ten years later that it began to 
decline, and some twenty to twenty-five years later 
the days of the steamboat were practically at an 
end on the Missouri River. Judson and I 
returned to Fort Scott well pleased with our trip. 
Col. Judson was a sly old fox, as the following- 
will indicate: I happened to get hold of the 
colonel's carpet bag, and I said: "Colonel, what 
makes yourbag so heavy, " and he said: "Charley, 
I will tell you something that you will find best to 
do. When you are traveling and stop at hotels, 
show that you have heavy baggage, and you will 
get better attention, as they will think you have 
valuable baggage." Then he said: "I have a 
stone in my satchel to make it heavy and fool 
them." The colonel was a very vain man and 
liked to show off. 

The summer of 1860 passed undisturbed by the 
Jayhawk troubles and we felt that we were through 
with them and the town was gradually improving 
and business increasing, but in October the 
trouble broke out again. United States Court 
was to be held here the first of October and there 
were several prisoners to be tried that belonged 
to the Jayhawk crowd, so Montgomery 's gang 
came into town and broke up the court and Judge 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT (il 

Williams left for Missouri for safety. This same 
Judge Williams, I should judge, in his younger 
days had been one of the boys, for at this time he 
would play the fiddle, sing a song and dance as 
well as the youngest of us, and was a good story 
teller, and whenever he made a charge to a jury 
would always ring into the charge that he had 
been chief justice in Iowa for forty years and had 
never seen a more intelligent jury than the one he 
was addressing. At flattery he was a success. He 
died, I think, 1861, in the harness of a judge, 
lamented by all. The same month was the adver- 
tised land sale for the lands that were in market 
in this district, and the Jayhawk troubles kept 
land buyers away, so there was no sale except to 
parties that had claims and had not used their 
pre-emption right, so they located land warrants 
on the claims they held. I was one of those that 
took my chances of locating a warrant on my 
land when the land came into market, instead of 
using my pre-emption right. 

Along about November 1, 1860, there were two 
traveling musicians came along, one by the name 
of Signor Forillo and the other by the name of 
George Peabody, — Forillo was a fiddler and Pea- 
body a banjoist. After they had played several 
times for the boys, we concluded to hire them by 
the month to give concerts for our amusement, so 
we made a bargain with them for $100 a month, 
and after the first month we let Peabody go, but 
as Forillo claimed to be a dancing master, we 
hired him till spring to run a dancing school, and 
there is where all the earlv inhabitants of Fort 



62 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Scott, both old and young-, learned all they knew 
about dancing. The school was kept uj) until the 
spring of 1861, when the war broke out. Once a 
week we would have a dancing party and it was a 
great success. Captain Lyons, afterward General 
Lyons, who was killed at the battle of Wilson's 
Creek, Mo., was stationed here that winter with 
his company. He was a red-headed bachelor and 
became one of Signor Forillo's scholars and took 
a great interest in the dancing until spring, when 
he with his company was ordered away. Captain 
Lyons was a very strict disciplinarian and was 
very strict with his men. At one time to punish 
one of his men, he made him walk in the hot sun, 
with a barrel over his shoulders and arms, leav- 
ing his bare head exposed to the hot sun and flies, 
with no chance to use his hands to drive the flies 
away. Aunt Jane Smith and some other sympa- 
thizing ladies went to Lyons to intercede for the 
poor soldier, but it did no good. Many nights 
after the dancing school was over the men 
adjourned to the Free State Hotel, and after visit- 
ing Harry Hartman's bar they would frequently 
wind up with a stag dance in the office of the hotel 
— young and old. Capt. Lyons, Judge Williams, 
Col. Judson and other older parties joined in with 
us younger ones and made the tail end of the 
night lively. 

In December, 1860, the first wedding to my recol- 
lection that occurred after I came to Fort Scott was 
a double one, — Ben McDonald and Charley Jud- 
son, and Emma and Anna Johnson, the step- 
daughters of Uncle Johnny Miller. They used to 




B. P. McDonald, born in Pennsylvania. Cornel to 
Fort Scott August 1, 1857. Now living-. A prominent 
citizen of Fort Scott. The first man married in Fort 
Scott. 



KARL y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 63 

call them the curly-headed Johnson uirls. They 
had their wedding breakfast at Race Harkness' 
restaurant, and after breakfast Ben and Charley 
took their girls in a double rig and drove down 
to Dr. Mellick's, twelve miles east in Missouri, 
and were married there. They returned in the 
evening, and you bet we boys gave them a lively 
reception. The breakfast was a lively one, Doc 
Red field being master of ceremonies and Race 
Harkness did himself proud in the menu he set 
before the boys. Ben and Charley drove off 
under a shower of old shoes and onions the boys 
had collected together, to give them a parting 
salute. Ben and Charley married young,— I don't 
think either of them was of age* but they could 
not withstand the fascinating, curly-headed, fresh 
looking girls, who came from the east only one 
year before. Ben had been sweet on a girl before 
the arrival of the Johnson girls, but she had to 
give way to the new arrival. 

Joe Ray and Jennie Wilson went with Ben and 
Charlie to act as best man and lady at the wed- 
ding. When the minister commenced the cere- 
mony, Joe. in his off-hand way, said, "Hello, 
preacher, you don't want to marry me along with 
these two pair of youngsters, as I have not got 
my girl's consent yet." 

Ben, as we always called him in later years, 
was connected with his brother, Alex, in estab- 
lishing the first bank in Fort Scott. At the 
breaking of ground of the Fort Scott &: South 
Eastern Railroad, George A. Crawford made the 
opening speech and told of Ben carrying him 



64 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

across the Marmaton river to assist in building- 
Ben's claim cabin, and remarked, that "Ben had 
been carrying- him ever since — financially." 

In April, 18G1, the second city election was 
held. Uncle Johnny Miller was elected mayor 
and recorder, and I was elected treasurer and 
Jack White, marshal. Alex McDonald having 
been city treasurer prior to this turned over to 
me $12.50, and this was all the money I received 
while treasurer, except one third of $25 that Jack 
White, as marshal, collected from a prize fight. 
When Jack handed it to me he said that he and 
Uncle Johnny would keep the balance for their 
fees. 

Uncle Johnny Miller was a very sociable char- 
acter and liked to join in the fun with the boys 
and was good company. He and Jack White 
used to have loads of fun when they imbibed to 
some extent. Jack would get a little quarrelsome, 
but Uncle Johnny being good natured could con- 
trol him. Uncle Johnny was a Pennsylvania 
German and was a good German talker, as well 
as English. Any controversy that came up in 
the German or English language would be referred 
to , Uncle Johnny. One day Jake Bowers and 
John Smith were quarreling about who could 
speak English most properly and they were to 
refer it to Uncle Johnny. He to test them, put 
the question, "If it looks like rain tomorrow, 
what would you say?" John Smith said: "I 
think she did rain tomorrow," and Jake Bowers 
said: "I think she was rain tomorrow." Uncle 
Johnny decided Bowers was the best talker and 



EA RL Y DA Y8 OF FOR T .SCO TT 65 

John Smith had to set up the drinks. Uncle 
Johnny was quite thrifty and a money maker. 
Years later he was trustee of Scott Township, 
and one day Charley Drake says to him, "Johnny, 
do you get much out of that office," and he said: 
''Oh, yes, Charley, I manage to farm a living out 
of it," a remark which I think is very applicable 
to some of the county and city officers of the 
present day, who appear to farm the offices they 
hold for all they are worth. 

The first photograph gallery I think was estab- 
lished early in 1861, by a man named Parker, in a 
building that stood where the Miller Block now 
stands. In later years he was married to a daugh- 
ter of Mrs. Graff, who was a half sister to the 
wife of our f)i"esent townsman, Charles Mitchell. 
This same Parker left here years ago, and after 
an unsuccessful financial life returned here some 
few years ago and died. I believe the widow of 
Parker is now living in Chicago. 

April, 1861, as all know, the Civil War broke 
out, and Kansas, which was still a territory, 
was as patriotic as the balance of the north. A 
company of 108 was raised here for three months' 
service by Charles W. Blair, who was made cap- 
tain. A. R. Allison and I, being partners at the 
time in the building business, both enlisted, he 
being elected a lieutenant, I nothing but a private; 
he afterwards persuaded me to stay at home and 
take care of the business while he went with the 
company, he being an officer, so I stayed at home. 
The company left here for Leavenworth to be mus- 
tered in, but when they got there the orders were 



66 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

not to take any more three months' men, so Capt. 
Blair and some of the company were mustered 
into the Second Kansas for three years, and my 
partner, Allison, and some others, not liking to 
go in for three years' service, returned home. 
During the summer of 1861, and by September 1st, 
some three thousand troops, more or less, collected 
here at Fort Scott. What troops were here then 
were under the command of General Jim Lane, 
who ran things in rather a loose way. In the 
summer of 1861, Jim Lane had built a fort on the 
north side of the Osage River, and named it Fort 
Lincoln. It was built on low bottom land that 
was no more a fit place for a fort than where 
Knapp's Park is now located. This fort consisted 
of a stockade and a large blockhouse. In later 
years this stockade and blockhouse was moved to 
Fort Scott and located about the junction of Low- 
man and First Streets. On Sunday, the second day 
of September, 200 mules were grazing about where 
T. W. Tallman's farm is located, and a detach- 
ment of Colonel Weir's regiment was in charge of 
them, when about noon a large number of rebel 
cavalry came from the east and captured the mules 
and drove them off to Missouri. The alarm was 
given and all the cavalry that was here was 
ordered to give chase to the rebels and try to 
recapture the mules. The mules were driven by 
the rebel cavalry to the east side of Big Drywood, 
at what is called the Lambert crossing. The Union 
cavalry which was in pursuit, followed to the west 
side of Drywood, when lo, and behold, they found 
all of Price's army in camp. It appeared that 



EARL y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 67 

after the battle of Wilson's Creek in August the 
victorious army of the south under Price had been 
ordered to come and capture Fort Scott. That 
Sunday night when the cavalry from here went 
after the mules they expected a fig'ht, and what 
ambulances that were here connected with the hos- 
pital were ordered out, and the surgeon in charge 
called for volunteers and citizens to go out with 
the ambulances. Charley Bull, Joe Ray, Pete 
Smith and myself went out with one of the ambu- 
lances, and located on the hill about where the 
east end of Wall Street now is, to await develop- 
ments. Shortly after we got there. Joe Ray said: 
••Lord. boys, we must have some whisky to keep 
up our courage." Joe rode his horse out, while 
we rode out in the ambulance, and Joe said to 
Smith, who by the way was a Swede just over and 
whose English was not of the best, "You take this 
dollar and my horse and go to the hotel and get 
us a quart of whisky." Smith said: "Me tank I 
not like to go alone." So Joe said: "Oh, hell, go 
on." Smith started and soon returned, but as he 
was getting off the horse in his awkward manner, 
he let the bottle of whisky fall on the rocks and 
break. You bet Joe made the air blue cursing the 
poor Swede. 

About nine o'clock we were ordered back to 
town as our cavalry returned without any wounded 
for us to take care of. On Monday, the 3rd, all 
the cavalry that was here was ordered out to 
reconnoiter and advise us of the movements of 
Price's army. Price's cavalry met our cavalry on 
the west side of Drywood and then occurred what 



68 MEMOIRS A ND RECOLLECTIONS 

was called the battle of Drywood. I think there 
was in this battle a few wounded on each side and 
a few horses put out of the way, which was about 
the extent of the casualties. In the afternoon of 
that day word came that the whole of Price's 
army was coming to Fort Scott and to get all the 
infantry and cavalry that were here out on the 
hill east of town. The artillery that Lane had was 
composed of three pieces as different in size as 
an elephant and a pug dog. The cannon were in 
charge of some foreigners they had picked up as 
artillerymen, and there was about the same con- 
trast in them as there was in the cannon. Lane 
that day ordered all citizens here to be mustered 
in fort service as an emergency force for a period 
of fourteen days. When Gen. Lane organized us 
citizens into an emergency force as fourteen day 
men, Joe Ray swore he would not carry a musket 
nor would he join any company under Lane's 
orders, so Lane ordered him arrested and put in 
the guardhouse. I, as a corporal, was detailed to 
take Dr. Miller and John G. Stewart, as privates, 
and arrest Joe. We did so and put him in the 
guard house. Joe would stand at the door or at 
the window, and how he would cuss persons as 
they went by. Now, Joe was a great coward, and 
when it was proven to Lane that Joe was a born 
coward and could not help it instead of being dis- 
loyal, Lane ordered him released. Years after- 
wards, when Joe would get a little full, he would 
go for me for putting him in the guardhouse. He 
was kept in one day and a night. In after years 
when we would want any fun with Joe we would 
bring up the guardhouse incident. 




Guard House of the fort as it looks today. Now- 
used as a calaboose for the eitv. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 69 

There were some forty men, including- Ben 
McDonald, Charley Drake and myself, who were 
mustered into service, under command of Alex 
McDonald as captain. And by the way, McDonald, 
Drake and myself were never mustered 'out, so I 
suppose we are still in the service. After Lane 
had ordered all the troops but our company to the 
front, he ordered our company to open ammuni- 
tion and load it in wagons. After we had done this 
we were then ordered out on the hill with the bal- 
ance of the troops. As we were marched out we 
met the cavalry returning from the battle of Dry- 
wood, they telling- us that Price 's army was coming 
and that we would catch hell. It was about dark 
when our company met the balance of the forces. 
We had not been there long until it was found 
that Price's army was not advancing, so Lane 
gave the order to countermarch to town. About 
this time a very heavy thunder and rain storm 
came up. That night after Lane had held consul- 
tations with the colonels of the different regiments 
he ordered a retreat of all the army to Fort Lin- 
coln, excepting a cavalry company under Colonel 
Jewell, with instructions to Jewell to burn the 
town if Price's army came the next day. Colonel 
Jewell had fagots put in all the buildings so as to 
apply the torch when necessary. By the way, our 
company of fourteen day men did not follow Gen- 
eral Lane to Fort Lincoln, as we saw fit to act on 
our own hook. That Monday night Sam Williams, 
A. R. Allison and myself left town to go north to 
where Williams' family and some others were 
camped, about where the Catholic cemetery now 



70 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

is. By the way, about all the women folks- had 
left town but Aunt Jane Smith and Mrs. Col. Wil- 
son. We did not reach where Williams' people 
had camped until daylight, as it rained hard all 
night and we lay in a claim shanty about where 
Peter Redinger's house now stands. In the morn- 
ing after getting something to eat I told Williams 
and Allison that I was going back to town. I did 
so, and they with their families and others went 
north and did not stop till they reached Leaven- 
worth. 

I met Alex. McDonald in the morning when I 
returned. The town looked deserted and it was 
still raining very hard, and we expected Price's 
army at any time to come and burn the town. 
Jewell's cavalry kept a look out, but no army 
appeared. Tuesday and Wednesday night, 
McDonald, myself and others went out to a claim 
shanty on Joe Dillon's claim about tw^o miles west 
of town. Thursday morning when we came to town 
Col. Jewell told us that he thought Price was 
breaking camp and moving north. As it had 
rained every day and night between Monday and 
Thursday it put Drywood up so high that Price 
could not get his army across, and this is the rea- 
son Fort Scott was not burned at the time. 

Price failing to take Fort Scott as expected 
Gov. Jackson ordered his army north to attack 
Mulligan at Lexington. When McDonald and I 
would come to town each morning we expected to 
see to see the town in ashes, but thanks to the 
heavy rains which kept Drywood so high. Fort 
Scott was saved from destruction by Price's army. 



EARLY DAYS OF FORT SCOTT 71 

A short time afterwards the main body of Lane's 
army came back to Fort Scott, but left a company 
or two at Fort Lincoln to garrison it, until later 
on, when it was abandoned and the improvements 
moved to Fort Scott. 

There were some amusing incidents occurred dur- 
ing the raid by Price and the retreat of Lane's 
army. One was, my friend, Charley Drake, had 
tied his horse in the timber along the Marmaton 
to prepare himself to retreat before marching out 
bravely with our company to battle, so when Lane 
ordered a retreat to Fort Lincoln, Drake, suppos- 
ing that Price's army had come to take Fort Scott 
started to get his horse and ride north. It was 
very dark and he did not find his horse till day- 
light, after traveling around him all night, and 
when he did find the right place, some one had 
taken his horse and left an old plug in his place, 
so Charley came back to town and took his 
chances with McDonald, myself and others. 

Prior to the Price raid on Fort Scott, General 
Lane had been running the army affairs in his 
own way, but as I learned later, to my sorrow, he 
did not have any legal authority from the govern- 
ment to employ me, as a bill of some $300 that 
was due to me for coffins I had made for the sol- 
diers, I never received, the government claiming 
Lane had no authority to employ me. It was not 
long after the Price raid that the government had 
affairs reorganized and made this a depot for sup- 
plies and established a regular quartermaster and 
commissary here. Captain Insley was made quar- 
termaster and Carter Wilder was made commis- 



72 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

sary, and things assumed a different aspect than 
when Lane was running affairs. Col. Doubleday 
of the Second Ohio cavalry, was first put in com- 
mand of this post. I made many a coffin for the 
Second Ohio cavalry. They were a hard set and 
died off like sheep. They had been mustered in 
from the slums of Cleveland. The Sixth Kansas 
cavalry was organized here with Col. Judson, and 
Lieut. Col. Jewell was killed at the battle of Pea 
Ridge. Blair's battery was organized here, with 
Ed. Smith, captain. During the war Port Scott 
was a refugee camp and also a camp for sick sol- 
diers in this section, on sick leave. A great deal of 
this sickness was a hoax, as I worked as high as 
a dozen of these patients at a time on carpenter 
work. 

In connection with the army at this time were 
quite a number of scouts, and they generally 
dressed in the Buffalo Bill costume of today. 
Among them I well remember Captain Tuff, Mat. 
St. Clair and Joe Ury. They were a dare devil 
set and were not very particular how they handled 
their shooting irons. This same Captain Tuff" 
lately was connected with the horse market at the 
stock yards at Kansas City, and I think has 
gathered considerable moss in the business he has 
been engaged in. I meet him frequently in the 
lobby of the Coates House at Kansas City, Joe 
Ury, I believe, lives in Topeka today. 

Not long after Port Scott was made a military 
depot the principal citizens and officers of the post 
became quite intimate, and there was no lack of 
social parties. T remember a masquerade ball 



Crawford's Flour Mill. Woolen Mill. 

Built 18()3. Built ISO"). 

I think the first woolen mill built to make cloth 
in Kansas. 



EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 73 

held at Captain George Clark's house which was 
the great social event of that time. At this mas- 
querade one Charlie Rubicam impersonated Billie 
Barlow. He was not masked, but had his face 
and clothes arranged in such a way that he looked 
a perfect likeness of the vagabond, Billie Barlow, 
and being a good singer he carried out the char- 
acter by singing the song of Billie Barlow to such 
perfection that when he came for admission the 
door-keeper would not let him in, thinking he was 
a tramp. His most intimate friends did not know 
him, and he only got in after telling me who he 
was ; and I vouched for him. At this ball I imper- 
sonated the old Philadelphia Quaker, having had 
a drab suit made and well stuffed to give propor- 
tions, and long white hair and the regular broad 
brimmed hat. I made about a fac-simile figure of 
William Penn's statue on top of the city building 
in Philadelphia. There were a great many origi- 
nal costumes and it was a big success for a frontier 
town. 

After the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 
1861, David Manlove was appointed postmaster to 
succeed William Gallagher, who had served under 
Buchanan's administration. Mr. Manlove only 
living a short time after he was appointed, his 
son, Sam, was appointed to succeed him. In 1862 
I built the building for Sam for the use of the post- 
office on the first floor, and the second floor Sam 
used for his bachelor quarters. This building 
stood on the lot where Louis Klingbiel has his 
saloon today. Sam being one of the boys, a lot 
of us used to congregate at his room nightly and 



74 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

amuse ourselves. One night Sam said: ''What 
can we do to have some fun?" (There were pres- 
ent Dave Emmert and two other musicians enter- 
taining- us with music.) I said: "Sam, I have a 
scheme for fun ; I will take the Quaker suit that I 
wore to Clark's masquerade and put it on reversed, 
and you lead me around with the musicians fol- 
lowing and introduce me as the back-sliding- 
Quaker." As we visited different places the mu- 
sicians would play and I would waltz to the music. 
In our round we visited Mrs. Alex. McDonald's 
house and performed in the parlor. Mrs. McDon- 
ald not knowing who I was, or knowing that the 
costume was on wrong side front, said: "Aren't 
you tired? Please take a seat." I said: "I can- 
not:" which was the first she knew of the situa- 
tion. We took in the town, especially the saloons, 
and wound up in the parlor of the Wilder house 
to the amusement of the army officers and other 
guests of the house. It was pronounced by the 
most critical, a masterpiece in the art of mas- 
querading. 

The first oyster parlor in Fort Scott was opened 
by Julius Neubauer in 1862 over his saloon, in a 
building next west of Sam Manlove's postoffice 
building facing on Wall Street. Christina Trech- 
ter presided over the institution, and the oysters 
were dished up in as royal style as in a more 
pretentious restaurant. It was a great resort for 
the boys, especially those who had poor boarding 
houses. This same Christina is now living in 
Port Scott, as the wife of the proprietor of the 
Tremont Hotel, and has not lost any of her early 



KAltLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 75 

training, and dispenses meals to the public in as 
good style as she did forty years ago. 

The first flour mill built in Fort Scott was by 
George A. Crawford in the year 1863, adjoining 
the saw mill on the south bank of the Marmaton 
opposite the mouth of Mill Creek. The next flour 
mill was built in the year 18()8, by Col. Sheppard, 
of Wisconsin, and was located at Third and Clark 
streets, just west of the railroad embankment. 
The man who superintended the building of Shep- 
pard 's mill, about the time he had it completed, 
hung himself in the attic of the mill. The suppo- 
sition was that he got nervous, fearing that the 
mill might not be successfully built. He was an 
intelligent, large, fine looking gentleman, whom 
Col. Sheppard brought with him from Wisconsin, 
and Mr. Sheppard could not account for his 
actions. A few years later Deland &, Bacon 
moved a mill here from Mound City and located it 
on the banks of the Marmaton, in what is called 
Belltown. The third mill built was the original 
Goodlander mill in 1871. The Sheppard mill was 
destroyed by fire in about 1874 : the Goodlander 
mill was partially destroyed by a boiler explosion 
January 4th, 1876; and it was repaired and later 
on was added to, and on November 19th, 1887, it 
was destroyed by fire. The Deland mill having 
been destroyed by fire the year before, the only 
flour mill to day in Fort Scott is the third 
Goodlander mill. 

In 1862 and 1863, there was a stockade and an 
«arth fort built at the corner of National Avenue 
and Second Street, and at the corner of Second 



76 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Street and Scott Avenue. At this fort at Second 
Street and Scott Avenue there was a block house 
built, the same that now stands on the rear end of 
the lot occupied by John Bearman's mattress 
factory. Uncle Billy Smith lived there at that 
time, and when the war was over he moved the 
block house to his lot for a stable. There was 
also a double block house built on the block 
northwest of the Plaza. There was a twenty-four 
pound cannon placed at each of these forts. In 
1863 there was a fort and barracks ordered built 
on the high ground about a quarter of a mile east 
of the old property owned by Uncle Johnny Mil- 
ler on the hill. The barracks were partly built 
when the work was ordered stopped. Jack McDon- 
ald, later, became owner of the property, but in afew 
years the unfinished buildings disappeared. From 
the time Fort Scott was made a military depot, all 
was serene, and business and building prospered, 
and business was good all the time during the 
war. The spring of 1862, there was no hotel 
except the old Free State and Pro- Slavery Hotels, 
and there was a demand for more hotel accommo- 
dation. George Dimon, that spring, decided to 
build a hotel ; so he made brick where the old glass 
works were, on the Peter Redinger farm, and com- 
menced building the building that is now occupied 
by Horace Cohn, on the corner of Main and Wall 
Streets, and named it the Wilder House, after 
Carter Wilder, who was the commissary. The 
house was opened early in 1863 with a grand blow- 
out, and was a great resort for the army officers. 




Old Block House as it looks today, built by 
government in 1803 at the corner of Second 
Street and Scott Avenue. Now stands on rear 
of lot at north-west corner of First Street and 
Scott Avenue. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 77 

From the opening- of this hotel by George 
Dimon and his brother Charley, as landlords, 
until 1870, it had several landlords, as follows, as 
near as I can remember: — Wall White, a brother 
of Jack's; Old Man Lathe, then Palmer and Par- 
merlee, then Old Joe Darr. Darr was a character. 
When parties would come in on the stage about 
the first thing he would say to them after they had 
registered was " Let's go to the bar and swell the 
receipts." When a guest would come in and ask, 
"Is this the Wilder House? " Darr's answer would 
generally be, "You stay a few days and you will 
find it is the wildest house you was ever in." 
Darr would get up all kinds of attractions for the 
saloon adjoining the house. One day he got a 
large old fashioned crockery crate and put a 
couple of young niggers in it in a nude state and 
made them cut up all kinds of capers and pretend 
they could not talk. On the crate he had a sign, 
"The Wild Children of Borneo." The house was 
a money-maker then. In those days there were no 
silk hats worn in Fort Scott, for every newcomer 
who wore one disposed of it immediately after he 
came here, for he would no sooner get out of the 
stage at the Wilder House than the boys would 
say, "Here is another man with a stove pipe; let's 
go for him, "and there was nothing left of that 
hat in short order. There used to be a substantial 
farmer who came to town very often. He usually 
made his headquarters at the Wilder House as he 
was a great friend of Darr's. He would generally 
get pretty well loaded before he left for home. One 
day I met him in the Wilder House and he was 



78 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLETCIONS 

feeling pretty good, but he hadn't got as full as 
he generally did. I said, "John, how are you?" 
and he remarked, "Charles, too much water in 
the whisky." That night when I went home I 
found him hanging on the picket fence at my 
house. I said, "John, what is the matter?" and 
he remarked in a maudlin tone, ' ' Charley, too much 
whisky in the water." 

I had about all the work I could attend to at 
this time. In the summer of 1863 I built the stone 
block across the street opposite the Wilder House 
for Dr. Miller, who at that time was south with 
the army. The same year I built the first church 
in Fort Scott for the Presbyterians — the same now 
occupied by Moody's marble yard. Up to this 
time the lumber used for building was native, such 
as walnut, oak, sycamore, elm, and so forth. 
When I got the contract for the Miller Block and 
Presbyterian Church, I found that I must have 
some pine lumber, so I commenced hauling pine 
lumber from Leavenworth. I paid as high as $100 
per thousand for the lumber at Leavenworth, and 
$60 a thousand for freighting it down here, making 
it cost me $160 per thousand. I would sell it at 
$200 a thousand, as I had to make my regular 
profit of twenty-five per cent. 

About this time the first gift enterprise came to 
town and was held in Uncle Johnny Miller's store. 
The man had his prizes in a large show case on 
thS counter on one side of the store. A few days 
after the man was running his scheme some of the 
boys complained it was a gouge game. Doc. Van 
Pelt, Burns Gordon and myself, being together 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 79 

and having some fun, on hearing this report 
about the gift enterprise, concluded we would go 
in and try our luck. Van Pelt caught the man at 
his tricks and got mad, and, notwithstanding our 
efforts we could not keep him from getting up 
and walking through the show case, which he did, 
and broke up the gift enterprise. We were all 
three arrested by Deacon Jones, who was marshal 
at that time, and we each paid him $10 for our 
appearance before the recorder, but we never 
appeared. Besides this it cost us $100 we had to 
pay the gift enterprise man, and he left town with 
his wrecked case of prizes, and said the town was 
too hot a place for him; so, in total, we were out 
$130.00 for our fun; but money was no object in 
those days, as fun we would have without count- 
ing the cost. 

The same year, 1863, I built the City Hall, 
which cost $4,500. The same was raised by per- 
sonal subscription. This hall was used a few 
years for that purpose, and then was offered to 
the county as a court house free for a number of 
years. They then removed the county seat here, 
which was at that time located at Marmaton, seven 
miles west. This offer brought the county seat 
here and continued it here permanently. The city 
sold the hall eventually to the county and it 
was used for court house purposes until the pres- 
ent court house was built. The building was 
built of stone, was condemned a few years ago 
and torn down. This building was on the lot on 
the corner of Second Street and National Avenue, 
where the fire tower now stands, and is now owned 



80 MEMOIRS AND li ECO L LECTIONS 

by the city with the prospect of building- a city 
hall in the future. The first story was used by the 
city officers, the second story was all in a hall, 
which was used for public meetings and exhibi- 
tions of all kinds. 

I had built a winding stairway in this hall, 
ceiled up for banister to receive rail on top. I 
did not know enough to put a rail on the stair, so 
as I had a big fellow in my employ by the name 
of Burgess, who claimed he could do anything, 
and said he could put a rail on the stair, I told 
him to go ahead. I got him some thick walnut 
lumber to make the rail out of. He went to work 
cutting and fitting and drafting for a week, and 
made a rail, but it would no more fit the stairs 
than it would a worm fence, and looked more like 
a distorted snake than it did a hand rail for a 
stairway. He made a second attempt with no 
better success, and threw all his work under the 
bench and it lay there for years as a sample of 
his stair rail building. The city was lenient and 
accepted the building with the understanding that 
some day I was to put a rail on the stairway, but 
it was only a couple of years until the building 
was given to the county, so I was released from 
putting up a rail, and to the day the building was 
torn down it got along without a rail. 

In the early spring of 1865, just before the close 
of the war, one of the greatest shows on earth 
was held in this hall. Like all towns, the church 
people were hard up, and were giving entertain- 
ments to raise money. The Episcopal and Catho- 
lic churches would have dances to raise money; 




Presbyterian Church, built 1803. The first 
church built in Fort Scott. Now occupied by a 
manufacturer of tomb stones. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 81 

the Methodists, socials and parties : so about this 
time the Presbyterian people decided they must 
raise some money, but they did not want a danc- 
ing party and hardly knew what they did want. 
J. R. Morley in those days, was the leader of 
amusements, and had prior to this time put on the 
boards some very fair amateur performances with 
the material there was on hand at that time ; so 
some of the ladies, Mrs. Aunt Jane Smith, Mrs. 
Redfield, Mrs. Jewell and Barney Eberhardt, 
talked to Mr. Morley on the question. "Well," 
he said : "What do you want?" "Well, we don't 
want any dance, but something different, that has 
a moral influence." If I am not mistaken Morley 
was never a Bob Ingersoll or a Beecher, but 
agreed to help the church out, so the ladies gave 
him carte blanche to get up a performance. Mr. 
Morley came to me and said: "Charley, Aunt 
Jane Smith and the balance of the blue stocking 
women want an entertainment, and if you will join 
with me we will see if we can't get them up some- 
thing they won't forget." So Morley and I went 
to work and decided to have a combination show 
— the first part to be a circus and menagerie, — the 
second part a minstrel and vaudeville, and the 
after piece a railroad wreck or tragedy. So Mor- 
ley and I were about ten days making the prop- 
erty for the show, consisting of lion heads, ban- 
ners, elephant's trunks, imitations of horses, and 
so forth. The lion head was a huge affair, made 
of wire and covered with buffalo skin. Then we 
picked out all the star performers of the day to 
help us put the play on the stage. The following 



82 MEMOIRS Ai\D RECOLLECTIONS 

were the artists of that memorable performance : 
J. R. Morley, ringmaster; C. W. Goodlander, 
clown and lion imitator; Mark Shafifenburg (Van 
Amberg) the lion tamer; Jack White, bare-back 
rider; Ken Williams, acrobat; and then in the 
minstrel and vaudeville were Dave Kmmert, vocal- 
ist and fat boy: Ken Williams, ballet dancer; 
Ben McDonald, (by-the-way, Ben made the ugliest 
clarkey I ever saw), Charley Clark, negro com- 
edians—in the play of "Stocks Up and Stocks 
Down." In the railroad wreck George Clark was 
conductor, and the passengers were composed of 
some of our prominent citizens, dressed as Dutch, 
Irish, Italian, and so forth, and negroes and mar- 
ket women ; and a motley crew it was. I well 
remember George A. Crawford represented an old 
country woman with a squalling baby in her arms; 
Joe Ray was peanut boy ; George Clark had pre- 
pared the explosion of the engine, and when the 
wreck occurred everybody thought the house 
would fall. 

This closed the show, and it was pronounced a 
grand success. But when all was over the Presby- 
terian women said to Morley and I: "Well, boys, 
you did give us a show, but it was hardly up to 
church morals; but we can forgive you for the 
$700 you put into our treasury, raised without 
giving a dance, that has corrupt influence upon 
the young." This show was held about the time 
the rebellion was at an end, and the town was 
full of officers and they gave liberally, and every- 
body felt good, over the prospect of the war 
coming to a close. General Blunt and several 



EARL y 1>A ys OF FOltT SCOTT 83 

other lead in <j officers were present. Jack White 
and Dave lOmmert formed the elephant, and during 
the performance we had a boy carryinj^ beer by 
the bucket full and drew it up through a window 
in the dressing room, and some of the performers 
got quite full, and especially Jack and Dave, the 
elephant men, so when they went on in the elephant 
act, I, then acting as clown, observed that they 
were pretty shaky, and I looked for something 
that was not on the bill. When the elci)hant 
appeared I introduced the animal by the name of 
General Blunt. Ringmaster Morley said: "Why 
do you call him Blunt?" I said: "Because he is 
a good drinker." This brought the house down, 
as all knew Blunt 's failing. Ken Williams rode 
the elephant in regular Hindoo custom. Directly 
I saw that the animal was getting shaky and would 
come to pieces. I said: "Ringmaster, why is the 
elephant like the Southern Confederacy at the 
present time?" "I give it up," said Ringmaster 
Morley. I said : " Because it is falling to pieces." 
Just then Jack and Dave commenced falling on 
the floor, and the elephant collapsed amidst the 
roar of the audience. I had covered the hoops, 
for banners, for the bare back riders to jump 
through. The cover was made out of the New 
York Observer, the leading Presbyterian paper of 
the age, and I would hold them out in plain view 
to the deacons and deaconesses of the church to see. 
When I took the part of the lion I had a tight lit- 
ting clown suit on, with a huge tail attached and 
a lion's head over my head, ShalTenburg would 
put his head in my mouth, and I would growl and, 



84 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

he would feed me on old shoes and boots, and with 
all his caressing and feeding, I got mad and drove 
him off of the stage. When the show was over 
the actors adjourned down town for refreshments, 
and made a night of it. We considered this our 
farewell performance. 

One of the leading ladies of the church. Aunt 
Jane Smith, whose Scotch Presbyterianism had a 
hard struggle with her Scotch thrift before it 
would consent to the circus, would on no account 
agree to patronize the show in person. So she 
opened an ice dream stand in the hall on the first 
floor, just east of the stairs near the windows, and 
here she decided to stay during the performance 
above. As the applause increased in noise and 
frequency, she grew correspondingly restless, and 
finally during a burst of applause more emphatic 
than usual, she dropped the ice cream dipper and 
tip-toed upstairs just to see what it was all about. 
That lapse from her high resolve proved her 
undoing, or at least that of the ice cream venture, 
for during her absence, which took in a whole act, 
a dozen or more little darkeys entered an open 
window and disposed of most of the cream. Aunt 
Jane's first inkling of what had occurred was 
when she descended the stairs and saw a dozen 
dusky forms going out of the window like so many 
frogs. What cream was left Aunt Jane would no 
offer for sale, as the little marauders had used 
their hands instead of spoons in helping them- 
selves. At this time I was sweet on one Josie 
Hayward and I had taken her to the show. She 
was a very modest girl and when she saw me play- 



5'C 




EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 85 

ing clown and lion in tights, she became disgusted 
and had her big brother take her home before the 
show ended. 

During the year of '65 McDonald Hall Block 
was built south of the Wilder House, the same 
building now occupied by the Citizen's National 
Bank and other business houses. The upper floor 
of that building was one large hall with a stage in 
one end of it. After this all shows, both amateur 
and professional, were held in this hall up to the 
time the opera house was built. 

As a sample of some of the shows held in this 
hall, (through the kindness of John R. Morley. 
who is now living in Saginaw, Michigan, and by 
the tone of a letter which I received from him 
some months ago, I should judge he is just as 
lively and full of fun as he was thirty-five years 
ago), I will here reproduce, mostly, his version 
of said amusements. 

The next plays, after the great moral show held 
in the city hall, were held in the above hall, the 
prominent features of which were Madame Jarley's 
Wax Works ; Dick Darling, the Cobbler ; a song 
by Lord Lovell, and a disaster on the Fort Scott 
and Mound City Railroad. Our star piece after- 
wards was the Beheading of John, the Baptist, 
a tableau intensely original with our company, 
and which was so well liked that we had to repeat 
it the following evening. I well remember that we 
used Wall White's, a brother of Jack White. 
head for that of John, the Baptist, his face resem- 
bling very much the pictures of that apostle, as 
shown up in history. C. F. Drake made the tin 



86 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

helmets, shields and spears and armor for our 
bare legs and arms of the Roman Soldiers. 
White was seated under the carpeted stair leading 
up to the elevated seat occupied by Herod and his 
family, with his head protruding through a hole 
cut for the purpose and it resting in a large tin 
(supposed to be silver) service, which had a false 
bottom fitted close around his neck, with white 
powder rubbed into his face and beef blood 
sprinkled over it and running in small pools over 
the bottom of the dish. White's head was a ter- 
ror to behold, and nearly caused many of the 
ladies present to faint. The second night some- 
thing very amusing occurred to those behind the 
scenes, connected with the presentation of this 
same tableau. At the last moment we found to 
our dismay that we had forgotten the bladder of 
beef blood and we had to take some carmine ink 
and use it as a substitute for blood. This was an 
excellent substitute, only the ink, being largely 
composed of ammonia or some other pungent 
material, caused something we did not look for in 
the program, for as the curtain went up a 
spasmodic twitching took place all over White's 
face, a phenomenon that caused the audience to 
go wild with delight, for this was just as a head 
ought to behave, as they thought, freshly decapi- 
tated, and the result that we had intended, but we 
behind the scenes looked upon the phenomenon in 
an entirely different light and trembled at the fiasco 
that threatened us, for White during these con- 
tortions in a low whisper managed to say "quick, 
quick, boys, lower the curtain, I have got to 



EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 87 

sneeze.'' Down went the curtain just in time for 
the explosion of sneeze that followed, or more 
correctly, sneezes. One, two, three, if not four, 
encores followed, and it was by the skin of our 
teeth that w^e w^ere enabled each time the curtain 
was raised to lower it quick enough to cover 
White's sneezes. What threatened to be its ruin 
proved to be the most successful feature of the 
tableau. 

It was at one of our tableax at McDonald Hall 
that another amusing incident took place. Capt. 
George Clark was stage manager and I had some 
other position for the time being. Clark was 
regretting that we had no scenery, something that 
no respectable theatre company could be without. 
He thought we ought to have a painting of a house 
if nothing else, as it could be made to do duty in 
most any kind of a play. Turning to Tom Herbert, 
who was standing by, he asked him if he could 
paint a house. Tom thought he could, so he was 
engaged right on the spot as our scenic artist, and 
taking the canvas over to his shop he immediately 
set to work. Now, all know that Herbert is a 
conscientious workman. He had agreed to put a 
house on the canvas and he was not going to 
shirk the obligation in the least in anything per- 
taining to a well built and complete house that his 
contract called for, so he first made a good stone 
foundation about two and a half feet high, and 
upon this he put the brick walls and roof and 
painted in the door and windows. As the canvas 
was about nine feet high, all that our stage ceiling 
would admit of, you can easily imagine the dimen- 



88 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

sions of that house and the peculiar effect it had 
when set on a stage adapted in size to appear per- 
spective, say five miles away. It was intended to 
represent an ordinary size house a foot away only 
from the audience. The play that we intended 
this scene for was "The Serenader. " A very tall 
man by the name of Ives in the employ of C. W. 
Goodlander, was to act as the serenader, with his 
guitar. He was to sing and play for the benefit of 
his lady love under the window of her house. 
The climax of the play was to be the appearance 
of the old Dutch father in the window, clad in his 
night gown, to administer to the astonished musi- 
cian something more substantial than a bouquet. 
I shall never forget the dismay depicted in Capt. 
Clark's face when he first saw and stood looking 
at the painting. Herbert looked bewildered, but 
could not see that it was his fault that tall Ives, 
who was standing before it, could look right over 
the top of the house. Like the tailor, he, Herbert, 
thought he had to to be governed by the size of 
the cloth. It was in dimensions and appearance 
the size of a fair sized smoke house. Turning to 
me Clark said, "This will never do ; Morley, can't 
you suggest some way out of the difficulty." I 
replied, "Captain, I have never painted a piece of 
scenery, but I think I could accomplish something 
that will answer for the occasion if I tried. " "By 
all means, try," says Clark, "as another entertain- 
ment is set for tomorrow evening and we have no 
time to lose." The canvas was carried back to 
Herbert's shop, and I set to work. After painting 
over the old picture with a suitable color, I sue- 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 89 

ceeded in putting on the canvas a very satisfactory 
scene for the requirements of the coming play. 
Herbert's difficulty was overcome by painting- in 
only part of the house, which included the second 
story windows ; to this was added a fence, and 
Included trees and a full moon shedding its light 
over all. I remember when the curtain went up I 
was as much astonished at the general effect as the 
audience, who received it with much hand clap- 
ping. One of our most amusing plays was a pan- 
tomine, entitled "The Gouty Baron and the Magic 
Box." Jack White took the part of the baron 
and he acted the part well. Charley Goodlander 
was the court jester or harlequin ; Ben McDonald 
and Charley Rubicam were the attendants of the 
old baron. The jester would perform all kinds of 
tricks on the old baron and he would ring for his 
attendants to come and catch the jester. Every 
time they came the jester would jump into the 
magic box, and the attendants would open the box 
but could not find him. All acting was in panto- 
mine. The magic box was quite a mystery to the 
audience, as the sudden appearance and disap- 
pearance of the jester was a great source of won- 
to them. 

Another play or after piece which was quite 
amusing and suitable for the frontier, was "The 
Arkansas Traveller." By this time John R. 
Morley had become an adept at painting scenery 
for our entertainments. He painted the Arkansas 
log house and surroundings to perfection for this 
play. 

The first bank established in Fort Scott was in 
the fall of 1862. I was with Alex McDonald in 



90 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Chicago in January, 1863, when he bought a safe 
for his bank. I think this was the first safe 
brought to Fort Scott. It was all cast iron. The 
same safe stands in my lumber office to-day. 
Charlie Osbun was cashier of the bank. It was in 
the rear end of McDonald's store, which stood on 
the corner of Scott Avenue and Wall Street. The 
bank was on the corner of the alley and Wall 
Street, where Hafer's tailor shop now is. One 
night John Dillon, a clerk in McDonald's store, 
was sitting in the bank with Tom Bridgens, city 
attorney, and John G. Stewart, Jack White, Sam 
Manlove and myself had been in Julius Neubauer's 
saloon, just across the alley, and being in good 
condition for fun, we saw Dillon in the bank, and 
at the same time seeing a lot of empty salt barrels 
in the alley, we concluded to play a trick on 
McDonald's clerk. We piled the salt barrels 
up against the door, so that when he opened the 
door they would fall in on him. Our scheme 
worked all right, but we had not counted on the 
legal adviser that was in John's company, when 
lo, and behold, the next morning we were all 
arrested for attempting the life of John Dillon. 
Squire Margrave at that time was city recorder, 
and we were all marched up to the office by the 
marshal, followed by quite a number of people. 
Tom Bridgens, city attorney, presented the case. 
He had trumped up some witnesses for his side 
and had made a strong case against us. Jack 
White said: "Boys, we have no lawyer to plead 
our case." "Oh, pshaw," said Sam Manlove: 
"No use going to that expense: I am as much of 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 91 

a lawyer as Tom Bridgens is, and I will plead our 
case and save a lawyer's fee. " After the prose- 
cuting attorney had finished his side of the case, 
Sam got up and made a great plea, and said 
affairs had got to a great state in this town if the 
boys could not have a little fun without being- 
arrested, and he did not see that John Dillon's 
life w^as in any danger by the weight of empty 
salt barrels falling on him, and the whole thing 
was trumped up by Attorney Bridgens just to show 
his authority. After Sam had got through with 
his plea he said to Judge Margrave : "You was a 
boy one time, and you know how it is on the fron- 
tier, as you have spent all your life here; I sub- 
mit our case to your honor, and our defense is a 
good one and you know it." The judge smole one 
of those quiet smiles of his, and said: ''Boys, I 
am sorry that instead of being home in bed, you 
have been making owls of yourselves ; a complaint 
for attempting a fellow citizen's life is a serious 
affair: and as I want to be as easy as I can, I 
will only give you the minimum fine I can impose, 
$5.00 and costs apiece, making the amount of fine 
$7.50. We each had to fork over. We kicked, 
but it did no good. "'Pay, or go to the lock-up," 
said the judge : so the lark that night cost us each 
the court line, beside the amount it took to get us 
in condition to attempt a fellow citizen's life, and 
in those days that material was not very cheap. 
We tried later on to get even with Dillon, by hav- 
ing him arrested for carrying concealed weapons, 
but did not succeed, as his attorney. Bridgens, 



92 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

warned him of the danger of being arrested by us 
if he did so, so he told Dillon to keep his pistol 
in sight until we got over being mad. 

In 1862 was about the first advent of the drummer 
or commercial traveler visiting Fort Scott, and in 
those days, as they are now, they were hale fellows 
well met, and the boys here were always ready to 
entertain them and give them the best the town 
afforded. They most always left town the worse 
for wear and loss of sleep and funds. One day a 
drummer came who was quite fresh, and he made 
the remark that he understood we boys got away 
with all the drummers that came to Fort Scott, 
and that he was going to hold up the reputation of 
the fraternity, that he was able to take care of 
No. 1. Well, this remark was enough for the boys 
to take him in charge and deal out to him the 
best the town afforded. By midnight he became 
so beastly full that we decidecl the best place for 
him was in the stable ; so we took him to the stage 
barn, he being in such condition that he did not 
know the difference between a bed of straw in a 
stall with a halter around his neck, and a feather 
bed with his wife's arms around his neck. The 
next morning some of the boys went to look after 
our traveling friend of the night before, and lo, 
and behold, he was gone. The stage left in the 
early morning, and he had got up early enough 
to catch the first stage and leave town without bid- 
ding us good-bye. He never returned to my 
knowledge. 

Fort Scott people had the reputation of enter- 
taining strangers the best they knew how, and I 




('. H. Osbun, born in Pennsylvania. Came 
to Fort Scott, April 1858. Now living-. An 
old bachelor. The first bank cashier of Fort 
Scott and the financial confidant of the ladies. 



KA R LY DAY 'S OF FOR T SCO TT 98 

don't think it has lost its prestige in that line up to 
the present day. 

From this time on, more or less traveling men 
made their appearance to Fort Scott to educate 
the Fort Scott merchants in the new departure of 
buying- goods, and by the late sixties and the 
advent of the railroads they became quite plenti- 
ful and were heartily welcomed by the hotels of 
that date. The Fort Scott boys met their match 
in the pioneer drummer of '68, '69 and '70, and 
gave up the amusement of hitching them in a 
stable, as they did the first one that came. There 
were some fine samples of men, both as to 
physique, good looks and honorable, up-right 
gentlemen of the grip among the pioneer commer- 
cial men of that day. I well remember among 
them the following: Mike Gallagher, Frank 
Riggs, Jimmy Morehead, Barney Dixon and John 
Ladd, who were all a credit to the profession and 
were men with whom the present drummer would 
be proud to have been acquainted. The commer- 
cial traveler, like the railroad, was a civilizer on 
the frontier. A bust of these five gentlemen drum- 
mers I have mentioned would be an ornament to 
set up in any of the lodges of the travelling fra- 
ternity of today. They are all dead. Their image 
is still green in my memory, and I shall never 
forget the enjoyable times that I have had with 
them in years gone by. Peace to their ashes, and 
if in the hereafter, as I hope, I shall meet them, it 
will be an enjoyable meeting. 

Please pardon my digression, — the commercial 
traveller of today is a large factor in the commer- 



94 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

cial business of the country, and could not well be 
dispensed with ( as the people have become edu- 
cated in that way of buyinof goods) any more than 
the railroads, telegrai)h and other improvements 
made in the last fifty years, that have enabled 
commerce to spread, which could not have been 
done forty or fifty years ago when the commercial 
traveller was an unknown party. 

Go back to the days when the genial traveling 
man with his grip was not buying a thousand mile 
ticket, patronizing railroads and hotels and coquet- 
ting with the good looking waiter girls, there 
would not be the business for railroads and hotels 
that are now kept up to a great extent by the 
patronage of the smiling and generally good- 
natured man with his grip, and I dare say there is 
not a town in the country but that some of the 
lassies look forward with pleasure for the regular 
appearance of the knight of the road, (especially 
the younger of the fraternity ) and vie with each 
other for his attention. In a nutshell, the man 
with the grip is indispensible to business and the 
social world. Long may he live and hold his 
grip. 

About this time in addition to commercial trav- 
ellers, the railroad travelling agent made his 
appearance, advertising his railroad. They were 
generally called ''The Tack Hammer Brigade," 
and they were not behind the commercial traveller 
in any way. As I remember the first of these tack 
hammer men who made their appearance here were 
A. C. Dawes, Joe Gibbs, Gid Baxter, Andy 
Atkins, Pat Humphrey, Joe Lyon and Henry Gar- 



EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 95 

land. I became well acquainted with them, and 
they were men whom it was a pleasure to meet. 
The first four are dead now, I believe, but Pat 
Humphrey, Joe Lyon and Henry Garland are as 
alive as they were over thirty years ago. I fre- 
quently meet them as of old and they each still 
claim their railroad is the only one fit to travel 
over. 

In 1860, the first wagon scales or hay scales put 
up in Fort Scott was owned by Joe Ray and Jack 
White jointly, and was built in the street at the 
junction of Main and Market, in front of where 
Rodecker's store now^ is. Joe and Jack's place 
of business was just opposite on Market street, and 
they alternately attended the weighing, and the 
money they took in for weighing they deposited in 
the beam-box, where they kept a bottle of whiskey; 
so every time they weighed a wagon they deposited 
the proceeds in the beam-box and took a drink. 

When the bottle was empty, they took their 
money on hand and replenished it. Joe used to 
say. **That is the only way to run a saloon: no 
one can dead beat you for a drink." 

In 1862 Jack White established the first hard 
wood lumber yard here. Joe used to joke Jack a 
good deal about his lumber. As any one knows, 
native lumber, especially elm, is more or less of a 
warpy nature. Joe used to say that Jack had to 
have a tight board fence to keep his lumber from 
crawling out of the yard and that his lumber was 
so crooked he had to measure it with a cork screw, 
and that his lumber yard was like a saloon, he had 
to use a cork screw to dispose of his goods. Joe 



96 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

would make the remark every time that he entered 
Jack's yard, that he thought he had snakes, as the 
lumber was crawling- so much. Joe was a rabid 
democrat and Jack was a rabid republican, and 
many a quarrel they would have over politics, 
but they would wind up with a compromise by 
going- to the scale beam box and taking a drink. 
Joe was a great coward, and the boys were all the 
time playing a great many tricks on him, such as 
putting- terrapins in his bed, coons in his room, 
and all kinds of tricks. 

In the early days we used to have a great many 
hunting parties, and Jack White and Joe Ray 
always went along to attend to the cooking-, as 
they enjoyed that much better than to carry a gun. 
They always bragged on their soup. One day a 
half dozen of us were on a hunt east on the state 
line, and when we came to dinner we found the 
soup pretty thick with leaves. We asked: "Boys, 
what are those leaves doing in the soup?" They 
spoke up and said they were sassafras leaves that 
they had j^ut in to season the soup with. We were 
hungry as bears and ate the soup and strained it 
through our teeth. The cause of the leaves in the 
soup we found out afterwards, was that -the boys 
had got pretty full and had knocked over the 
tripod that the pot hung on and the contents were 
emptied on to a bed of leaves, and they had hur- 
riedly gathered up soup and leaves and put it back 
in the pot and took out the larger leaves. It was 
at this hunt that Sam Manlove and I got into one 
Baker's barnyard and shot some of Baker's barn- 
yard fowl, as we had failed to get any wild game. 




THE TWO CRONIES. 



Joe Rav, 

Died' 

Feb. 15, 1869. 



Jack White, 

Died 
Dee. 23, 1869. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 97 

Sam pinned a card on the door of Baker's house 
(the family being away at church) telling him to 
call at the postoffice at Fort Scott and get his pay 
for the chickens. I shot at a chicken along by a 
row of gooseberry bushes, not knowing that Sam 
was on the other side of the bushes, and I filled 
the calf of his leg full of bird shot. He limped 
around for a couple of weeks, a sure remembrance 
of that hunt. 

George Stockmeyer, about this time, as he does 
now, in Fort Scott, sold vegetables and berries, 
and would go barefooted as a sign of fair weather, 
as he was always more or less of a weather 
prophet — as he now is. So when the boys saw 
Stockmeyer barefooted they concluded it was a 
good time for out door exercises. One day he 
came to town with his old horse and sulky and had 
on a lot of gooseberries for sale. A lot of the 
boys, who were out having a good time, tackled 
Stockmeyer and his rig and undertook to take 
him, horse, sulky and all, into Julius Neubauer's 
saloon, but as they could not get the sulky through 
the door they unhitched the horse and took him 
into the saloon. The boys gave the basket of 
gooseberries to Julius and told him to make a 
gooseberry punch for the crowd, including Stock- 
meyer and his horse. After the punch was made 
they poured a couple of glasses down the horse's 
throat and then all drank a toast to Stockmeyer 
and his horse. After the proceedings were over 
they hitched the horse to the sulky and put Stock- 
meyer aboard, and having paid him for his ber- 
ries, he drove off happy that he had made so good 
a sale. 



98 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

The winters, from the time I came to Fort Scott 
until 1863, some five years, were very mild, scarcely 
any snow, and ice two inches thick was a rarity. 
January, 1863, gave us a good snow and made 
good sleighing, but where were the cutters to enjoy 
it. Everybody wanted to have a sleighride as a 
diversion. Captain Insley said to me, "Let's get 
up a sleigh party and go to Marmaton. " He said, 
"With your carpenter shop and the government 
shop we will have a half dozen rural sleds made, 
and get all the boys and girls and have a good 
time." We succeeded in getting up quite a num- 
ber of rigs and filled them with a lively crowd. 
We drove up to the hotel at Marmaton, told the 
landlord we wanted a room to dance in and sup- 
per. The landlord said the only room he had to 
dance in was the dining room. We said we would 
use that for the dance and would substitute a 
hand-a-round for supper. There was a large red- 
hot stove in the dining room that was in the way, 
and hot as it was we carried it out. We did not 
have to look around for music as we had taken it 
along with us, as well as plenty of liquid refresh- 
ments. The dance for the kind was a success, the 
sleighride was superb, especially on our way home 
at four o'clock in the morning. This was my first 
sleighing in Kansas, as generally the snow in this 
locality was rare in those days, but when it did 
come we got some sport out of it. 

In the summer of 1863, the first Italian musicians 
made their appearance on the streets of Fort 
Scott — another sign of civilization from the far 
east. There was a harpist, violinist, flute and 



EA RLY DA VS OF FORT SCO TT 99 

piccolo players, and they made the best music we 
had heard in Fort Scott, and the boys feeling good 
over hearing the music concluded they would use 
this band and have some fun. George Clark said : 
"Charley, what shall we do, and have this band 
play for us?" Now for a year or two Roach had 
kept a pet bear chained in the yard of his house, 
and we used to have considerable fun playing with 
the bear. I said: "Clark, let's have a bear 
parade;" so it was decided that Clark should act 
as manager, I to be bear tamer and performer, 
Tom Corbett to lead the bear while marching, Ken 
Williams, acrobat and cannon ball tosser, Bill 
Norway, big Indian. We were all dressed in cos- 
tume to suit our part of the performance. The 
bear w-as no cub, — he weighed over 200 pounds. 
After getting the Italian band and the performers 
together we went up and asked Roach for the use 
of his bear. He granted the request on promise of 
safe return. About the time we were ready to 
start there was a great crowd ready to follow, so 
Clark gave the command to march, and ordered 
all followers to fall in line. I led the procession 
looking like a matador at a bull fight; Tom Cor- 
bett next, leading the bear, then Ken Williams and 
Bill Norw^ay, then the Italian band, with the pro- 
cession of citizens behind ; we made quite an 
imposing appearance. The idea was to march to 
different points of interest, especially saloons, and 
give a performance at each of these places to the 
music of the band. I w^ould waltz and wrestle with 
the bear to the tune of the music, then Williams and 
Norway would go through with their specialties, 



100 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

and Clark, while the show was going on, would 
dilate on the virtues of the show and the great 
expense he had been to, to import it from sunny 
Italy. After each performance the party we 
visited would set up refreshments — mostly in liquid 
form. We first went to the Wilder House, next to 
the different saloons and the officers' headquarters. 
Mr. Bear all this time appeared to like the fun as 
well as the boys. After winding up at the officers' 
quarters I said: "Clark, take us out to John R. 
Morley's house and give a performance there." 
Clark said: "What do you want to go there for? 
There are no liquid refreshments." I answered 
Clark and told him, "There are two young ladies, 
tenderfeet, from Ohio, visiting Mr. Morley, and 
Jack White and John Dillon are sweet on them, 
and the two boys are out there now, and I think it 
best to give the girls a taste of frontier amuse- 
ment. " We marched up to Morley's house — he 
lived then in the house that Henry Neubauer 
resides in now. The Morley household hearing 
the music coming were all out on the veranda: 
we marched into the yard in good order, George 
Clark introducing us in grand style. Norway led 
off with the Indian dance, Ken Williams with his 
performance, leaving me for the great finale. Mr. 
Bear was in great trim, and I think Mr. Bear, 
like myself, wanted to show off to the eastern 
girls, and we entered into our performance with 
great gusto. First, we waltzed around and around 
and courtesied to the ladies and then we went to 
wrestling and tumbling on the ground. About this 
time, unknown to the audience, Mr. Bear sank his 



J-JA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCOTT 101 

teeth through my boot into the calf of my leg; but 
paying no attention to the bite, I finished up the 
performance, and then remarked: "Ladies and 
gentlemen, Mr. Bear has given me information 
that he is tired of this damned show, and 1 think 
we will now retire." I said to Tom Corbett, "You 
lead the bear back to Old Roach," and to Clark 
and the other performers, "Go with me to Doc. 
Redfield's." " What for, " they said ; and I said : 
"My boot is full of blood, and my leg is sore 
where the bear bit me." This was the first inti- 
mation they had that I was hurt. This ended the 
memorable bear show and parade, which was the 
talk of the town for a long while. 

By the end of the war Fort Scott had become a 
town of some 3000 inhabitants, and all kinds of 
business was good, and from the time it was made 
a regular military depot until the fall of 18(54 the 
troops that were here had nothing to do except 
routine duty at the fort, but there was more or 
less irregular warfare raids, and incidents that 
occurred between the first Price raid and the last 
one. There was a raid by guerillas from the 
Indian Country on the town of Marmaton, which 
was a bad one, as they killed several inhabitants 
at that time and escaped south after doing their 
devilish work. Then there was a raid from our 
Union forces at Fort Scott on Baxter's store. 
They killed old man Baxter and robbed his store 
and carried off his loose property. This store 
was where Baxter Springs is now and that town 
was named after old man Baxter. This killing of 
Baxter was a cold blooded affair and there was 



102 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

no excuse for it. It was condemned by all, if it 
was done by Union forces. Then there was what 
we called the Col. Blunt or Baxter massacre. 
Col. Blunt with a command was taking a train of 
supplies to Fort Gibson, and with this command 
was the band of the 12th Wisconsin, composed 
mostly of young Germans, going to their regi- 
ment, which was stationed south of Gibson. As 
this command was in the neighborhood of Baxter 
Store a large force of mounted guerillas from 
Missouri, either with Quantrell or a man by the 
name of Taylor, made a dash on Blunt 's troops, 
taking them without warning, and killed quite a 
number of soldiers, among them several officers, 
and the worst and most cruel deed on record was 
the shooting down of all the innocent German 
band boys in cold blood. By the time Blunt got 
his command rallied to defend, the guerillas fled 
back into Missouri. The guerillas did not get 
any of the supplies, as they were more for killing 
than stealing. The troops here in camp, for a 
little recreation, used to go foraging in Missouri 
now and then. There was a report current among 
us here at that time that a squad of the Third 
Wisconsin in one of these raids had stolen a saw 
mill and brought it to Kansas, and a few days 
later some of them out on a raid were taken 
prisoners, and as a joke the boys said they had 
been back after the mill dam and got caught. At 
one time in one of these raids they even brought 
in a bell they had taken from a Campbellite 
Church over in Missouri. There were more or 
less court martials going on, men condemned for 



EA KL y DA VS OF FOR T SCOTT 103 

desertion and murder. I knew of several being- 
drummed out of camp myself by order of the 
court martial, and that one of the most cold 
blooded killing's that occurred at that time was 
done by a man named Prazell, who was an officer 
in a Missouri Union State Militia Company 
stationed over in Vernon County. He went to the 
house of August Baker, one of the most substan- 
tial farmers of that date, whose farm was east of 
here just in Missouri beyond the state line. For 
what cause no one but himself ever knew, but in 
the presence of Baker's wife, who begged for her 
husband's life, this man shot Baker to death in 
cold blood. He was arrested and brought to 
Fort Scott and was tried by court martial, and 
as shooting was too good for him, they con- 
demned him to be hung. The scaffold was erected 
out towards the government corrall about where 
the Presbyterian Church stands, on the prairie. 
He went to the gallows reading a Bible. I think 
he was one of the first men hung in Kansas 
according to law, military law. While in Leaven- 
worth I attended the hanging of a man by the 
name of Horn in January, ISC.'J, who was said to 
be the first man hung in Kansas according to civil 
law. 

This was all the war excitement until the fall of 
1864, which was called the second Price raid on 
Fort Scott. During the occupation of Fort Scott 
as a military post and depot it was commanded, 
as near as I can remember, by Col. Doubled ay, 
Major Henning, and our old townsman. General 
Blair, who by the way, at the battle of Wilson 



104 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Creek, Mo., took command after the death of 
General Lyons, and the wounding of Generals 
Dietzler and Mitchell, and showed himself equal 
to the occasion, just as if he had been an old 
regular. Gen. Price in the fall of 1804, marched 
north to the Missouri River in the eastern part 
of Missouri, and then west on the side of the 
Missouri River to the western border of Missouri. 
When he reached the Blue River in Jackson 
County, he marched his army south along the 
border, being followed by the Union forces under 
Gen. Pleasanton. Pleasanton's command over- 
took him in Linn County, near where the town of 
Pleasanton now stands, and there occurred the 
battle of Mine Creek. Price's army was routed 
and a large number of prisoners taken, including 
several officers, and one complete battery of artil- 
lery. The prisoners, both officers and privates 
were brought to Fort Scott, also the captured 
artillery. I remember distinctly seeing the officers 
under guard standing at the corner of the Wilder 
House, now Horace Cohn's store. Among them 
was Gen. Cable, Gen. Marmaduke, and one Gen. 
Chester. In later years this same Gen. Marma- 
duke was elected governor of Missouri, and Cable 
I met afterwards in Dallas, Texas, of which city 
he was then mayor. The privates were put in the 
block house and stockade which I previously 
mentioned as being moved from Fort Lincoln, 
and the officers were placed under guard at the 
Wilder House, and held a few days, when all, 
both officers and privates, were paroled. After 
the capture of a part of Price's army at Mine 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 105 

Creek the remaining- army moved on south with 
the intention of taking- Fort Scott in the retreat, 
but they were followed so closely by the Union 
Army that when they got on the hill where the 
Shinn farm is now located they could see with a 
field glass that the only ford leading into Fort 
Scott was well protected with artillery placed on 
the bluff north-east of the Plaza and if they under- 
took to force the ford with the Union Army in the 
rear, they stood a good show of being captured: 
so they moved east on the north side of the Mar- 
maton and crossed a ford some ten miles east in 
Missouri, and moved south and escaped. That 
night Pleasanton's army came into Fort Scott 
about worn out and went into camp after a week's 
steady march. After a week or so Pleasanton's 
command w-as distributed to other points, and 
affairs in Fort Scott settled down to the regular 
routine, and business revived, as this move of 
Price's was supposed to be about the last demon- 
stration in this section. The morning that the 
battery of artillery was brought here there was 
quite a little sensation occurred. The artillery 
was standing in Wall street and one piece that 
stood opposite the rear end of the opera house was 
in a depressed condition the same as when 
being transported: the street was full of people 
but just in front of the cannon there was a space 
of some fifty feet where there happened to be no 
one. I was standing just opposite the cannon on 
the sidewalk, when I heard a smart aleck say, 
"I'll show vou how thev fire off a cannon." He 



106 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

took an artillery match from his pocket and 
placed it in the touch hole and pulled the string, 
when lo, and behold a loud report. 

The cannon had been captured with a load in it 
and no one knew any better. One fellow had his 
head pretty close to the muzzle of the gun and had 
his hair and eyebrows terribly scorched. The 
cannon was loaded with a time shell, and when it 
struck the ground it rebounded and went through 
the top of a house that stood where the Good- 
lander Hotel now stands. This house I had built 
and it was occupied at this time by my brother's 
family, whose wife was up stairs at the time the 
shell passed over her head and exploded on the 
roof of the house now occupied by Henry Neu- 
bauer. There was no more fooling with the cap- 
tured artillery after that. The town of Pleasan- 
ton, Linn County, was named after General 
Pleasanton. In the spring of 1865, as we all 
know, the war closed, and the troops that were 
here were mustered out or moved away and a good 
many supposed the town would go backwards 
after the removal of the support derived from the 
military depot. For some months it did look that 
way, but by the fall of 1865, the town commenced 
to forge ahead, and by the time the Kansas City 
& Fort Scott railroad reached here the 7th day of 
December," 1869, it was a town of some 4500 
inhabitants. 

As an evidence of the appearance of the western 
border of Missouri after the war I give the follow- 
ing incident. In the summer of 1865, John K. 
Morley and his wife started together for a trip to 




House built by C. W. Goodlander in 1863, as 
it looks today. Stood where the Goodlander 
Hotel is now. The house the shell went through, 
tired from the captured cannon. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 07 

St. Louis. The only public conveyance in those 
days to St. Louis was by way of Kansas City. 
We took stage to Kansas City and stopped over 
night in Kansas City in a hotel on the corner of 
Fourth and Main, called the Colorado House, and 
the next morning took a hack to Pleasant Hill, 
then the western terminus of the Missouri Pacific 
railway. The country between Kansas City and 
Pleasant Hill presented a desolate appearance, as 
during the war it had been laid waste by the raids 
of Jenison and his gang from Kansas. Now and 
then you could see a lone house that had escaped 
the hands of the Jayhawkers, but as far as the eye 
could reach in every direction you could see lone 
chimneys standing singly and in pairs, all that 
was left at that time of what was called good 
homesteads. The grass had grown over the foun- 
dations and left no sign of there ever having been 
a house where the chimneys stood. As we were 
passing along, Mrs. Morley in surprise said to 
me, "Charley, what were those chimneys built 
for?" and I remarked: "Mrs. Morley, the early 
settlers of Missouri were of quite an economical 
turn and slow and sure and did not expend any 
money unless they had a sure thing of getting 
something for it," (which, by the way, was one of 
the things that gave the state the name of slow old 
Missouri by people who were very venturesome). 
I said, "Mrs. Morley, do you see that house in 
the distance, there is a chimney at each end built 
onto the outside of the house?" She answered, 
"Yes, and ain't it strange they build the chimneys 
out doors." I replied, "No, for they, to be sure 



108 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

of what they are doing-, will build the chimney first 
and give them a test, and if they do not draw well 
they do not build to them: those chimneys you see 
standing alone are ones that did not draw and to 
which no house was built." Mrs. Morley asked: 
"Why, Charley, is that so," and, turning to her 
husband, queried, "Is what Charley said true?;" 
Morley, without cracking a smile says, "I guess 
it is so, as Charley being a builder ought to 
know." Mrs. Morley asked no more questions 
about the chimneys and accepted the situation 
without any more comment on the subject on our 
way to Pleasant Hill. There we took the train to 
St. Louis. 

In front of the Wilder House were posts and a 
rail on top to tie horses to. This rail was quite 
broad and made a good seat, so late at night the 
boys used to sit on this rail telling yarns, not 
wanting to go to bed. One night along in 1867, 
Jack White, Billy Robinson and myself, w^ere 
sitting there about half asleep, and Jack White 
roused up and with great energy said: "Boys, 
let's all three get married and go to Baxter 
Springs on a wedding tour." Now, Jack was 
sweet on Kate Stewart, and had clear sailing. 
Billy Robinson spoke up and said: "Jack, it is 
well enough for you to propose marrying, as you 
have a cinch on your girl, while Charlie and I 
have not. " Col. Wilson had three daughters — 
Jennie, Lizzie and Fannie. Billy was sweet on 
Fannie, and I was making faces at Lizzie, and 
Jennie had married Joe Ray. Billy and I did not 
make much headway, as a certain party was in the 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 09 

way of Billy, and a certain lieutenant in the army 
was sweet on Lizzie. Jack married Kate that 
year, and Billy, some three years later married 
Jennie, the widow of Joe Ray, he having died in 
1809, and Jack White died the same year: so 
these two cronies passed away. As Billy failed 
to make a go with Fannie he was bound to get 
into the family. I later on married Lizzie, and 
Fannie later on married T. F. Robley. These 
Wilson girls, I think, were among the first few 
white children born in Kansas fifty years ago. 
Lizzie and Fannie are living now, but Jennie died 
some three years ago. 

After the war, in the summer of 1865, I com- 
menced to haul white pine lumber from Kansas City 
until the railroad got here, then bought of Latshaw 
cS: Quaide, who had a lumber yard on the corner of 
Fifth and Delaware, where the Armour Bank 
building now stands, who used to fill many of my 
orders without a signature, they knew my writing- 
well, I being in such a hurry when writing the 
orders that I forgot to sign my name. I con- 
tinued this until the Gulf road got to Paola, and 
then hauled from there, and later on when the 
road got to PleasantonI hauled from that point. I 
bought the white pine lumber from Kansas City 
parties until the railroad got to Pleasanton, and 
that summer the Hannibal bridge was finished at 
Kansas City, and I bought my lumber in Hanni- 
bal and had it shipped to Pleasanton. The first 
purchase I made in Hannibal was from Rowe »S: 
Toll — ten car loads. A few weeks later one Davis, 
of Davis, Bokee & Garth, lumber dealers of Han- 



no MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

nibal, came along, and I bought a train load of 
thirty-six cars from the firm. I don't think to this 
day Brother Toll ever forgave me, as he claimed 
he had found and pre-empted me, and I was his 
meat. This same Toll is now at the head of the 
Badger Lumber company of Kansas City. 

On the 7th day of December, 1869, the Missouri 
River, Fort Scott & Gulf R. R., now known as 
the Kansas City, Fort Scott «fe JNIemphis R. R., 
reached this point, and the days of hauling lum- 
ber by wagon was at an end. The first car of 
freight that came by rail to Fort Scott was a car 
of lath shipped to me for the old Gulf house, and 
I unloaded it while the engine was switching the 
train, so it was scattered a quarter of a mile 
along the track. There was a great blow out at 
the advent of this railroad into Fort Scott, as it 
was the first time a locomotive had blown its 
whistle this far south. 

The first county fair held in Fort Scott was held 
in the stockade fort at the corner of National 
avenue and Second street, in the fall of 1865, and 
the second fair was held in the fall of 1866, in the 
government corral enclosure that had been built 
by the quartermaster's department during the war, 
about in the locality of the present Presbyterian 
Church. There was quite a large enclosure and 
there was room for a short race track, but at the 
time the fair was held the grasshoppers were so 
thick on the track that they could have no races. 
That fall there was a story in Kansas that the 
grasshoppers stopped a railroad train, whether 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 1 1 

this is true or not, I must say they stopped the 
horse races as they were from one to three inches 
deep on the track and plenty to spare. 

In 18GT the first settlers of Fort Scott decided to 
have a blow-out. The following is a fac-simile of 
the bill of fare of the supper they had, the origi- 
nal having been preserved by my wife and is now 
in her possession. 

1857. 186" 

PIONEER SUPPER. 

Wilder House. 

Fort Scott, Kansas, Nov. 14, 18(57. 



BILL OF FARE. 

Twelve O'clock Supper. 

Soup. 

Oyster. Colbert. 

Fish. 

•Baked Black Bass. Broiled Red-horse. 

Relieve. 
Broiled Leg of Mutton, Caper sauce: 
Wild Turkey, Braised w^ith Oysters : 
Ham, Champagne sauce : Broiled Prairie 
Chicken, Parsley sauce: Rib of Antelope, 
a la Regeance : Buffalo Tongue. 
Cold Ornamental Dishes. 
Chaudfroid of Faisant, a la Parisienne. 
Pattress de foie Gras, with jelly. 
Bastion of Rabbits, a la Shiloh. 
Bear Tongue, a la Carlotta. 

Boned Turkey, decorated with jelly. 
Boned Partridge, a la Pawnee. 
Brandt, ornamented with jelly. 

Sunfish au Beurre, de Montpelier. 



112 



MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 



Entries. 
Rissoles of Jack Snipe, a la Pompadour. 
Fillet of Curlew, a la Rouenaise. 

Civit of Venison, with Port wine. 
Fillet of Wild Goose, a la Marmaton. 
Fillet of Teal Duck, a la Dry wood. 
Fillet of Plover, a la Prairie. 

White Crane Salad, a I'Osag-e. 
Woodcock Fricasee, a la Wolverine. 



Entries Continued. 
Noix of Fawn, a la Balltown, 
Coon Chops, a la Marias des Cygnes. 
Sweet-bread, a la Toulouse. 
Roasts. 
Beef, Wild Turkey, Killdeer, 

Buffalo, Saddle Venison, Gray Squirrel 

Gray Duck, Fox Squirrel, Sage Hen. 

Goose, Wood Duck, Crane, 

Mallard, Red-head Duck, Black Bear, 

Brandt, Canvas-back Duck, Gray Duck, 

Opossum with Persimmon Jell v. 
Butter-ball Duck. 
Pastry. 

Cocoanut Pyramid, 
Cantelope rum sauce, 
Strawberry Ice Cream, 
Champagne Jelly, 
Pretzels, 
Horn of Plenty. 
Dessert. 



Persimmon Pyramid. 
American Dessert. 
Mince Pie, 
Dewberry Jelly, 
Pumpkin Pie, 
Paw-Paw Pies, 



Wild Fox Grapes, 
Black Walnuts, 
Hazel Nuts, 

Butter Nuts, 



Bush Cherries, 
Paws Paws, 
Pecans. 
Apples, 
Coffee. 



EA RLY DA \ >' OF FOR T ^CO TT 113 

Wine List. 
Champagne. 

Robinson & Co. 's Dry Verzenay. 

J. Sattler & Co. 's Green Sea Imperial. 

C. Haynes' Royal Rose. 

Van Fossen Bros.' Gold Seal. 

Liinn cS: Stadden's Sillery Mouseaux. 

A. McDonald & Bro's Monopale. 

J. S. Redfield & Co.'s Dry Sillery. 

Dr. J. H. Couch's Verzenay. 

Dr. B. F. Hepler's Cabinet'. 

J. S. Redfield & Co.'s Imperial. 
Claret. 

Table, Medoc, Floirac, (D. Marie & Freres and 

Brandenburg-, Freres), St. Julien, Chateau, 

Leoville, (first quality ) Chateau Marg-ux, Cha- 
teau Yquem, Chateau Lafitte, Chateau Griscoms. 
California Wine. 

Angelica, Los Angelos Vintage. 

California Port, Muscatel and Hock. 
Kansas Wine. 
Southern Kansas Wine Co. 

Imperial, W. T. Campbell's Vintage. 

Sparkling Catawba, Spring River Vineyard. 

H. B. Hart's Seedling "Bergunday." 

Still Catawba, (very still, no noise). 
Ale and Porter. 

Hack's Imported (Leavenworth) Ale. 

Newberry's London Porter. 

Few people in Kansas would suppose that 
Eugene Ware, a prominent lawyer, now of Topeka, 
Kansas, and who has been dubbed the short-haired 
poet of Kansas, on account of his numerous 
literary productions in that line, had ever fol- 
lowed any other avocation for a livelihood than 
that he is following to-day. But this is not the 
case, for in September, 18GT he opened up a har- 



114 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

ness shop in a one-story building- that stood where 
J. P. Miller is to-day doing business and I must 
say that he could wax a thread and stitch up a 
suit of clothes for a horse equal to any tailor in 
that line and as for stuffing a collar — a butcher 
stuffing a sausage was not in it with Ware. A few- 
years later he turned over his horse tailor shop to 
his father and took up his present profession, 
which was more congenial to his temperament. 

In the early days of Fort Scott staging to Kan- 
sas City was quite a trip to make. When roads 
were good the trip was made in twenty-four hours, 
but there being no bridges in those days across 
the streams, when rainy seasons came on it was 
uncertain when you would get through. The last 
trip I made on the stage to Kansas City was in 
the summer of 1868, when the Kansas City railroad 
was built no further south than Olathe. George 
A. Crawford was my traveling companion, and as 
the weather was very wet we expected it would 
take us several days to get through. In those 
days, when going on a trip, we always needed 
some medicine in case of accident or snake bite. 
I prepared myself a small demijohn of whiskey, 
and Crawford, not needing so strong a drink, put 
up a half dozen bottles of wine. The roads were 
bad and the rivers high. The first day we got to 
a station in Linn county, the next day to Osawat- 
omie, and laid up there one day on account of 
high water. The medical supplies ran out there 
and we had to lay in a new supply. On the fourth 
day after leaving Fort Scott we reached Olathe at 
night, and stopped at old man Lathe's hotel. 




Residence Geo. Reynolds, built in 18():}. As it 
looked thirty years ago. Stood where the Hun- 
ting-ton Hotel now stands. The house Mayor 
Rav lived in when he died in 1865). 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 1 15 

Having been acquainted with the old man in Fort 
Scott we were glad to see him ; he was so glad to 
see us he said he would treat, if he had any liquor, 
and I said; "Lathe, you furnish the water and 
sugar and I guess there is enough left in this demi- 
john to furnish the balance." I brought out my 
medicine chest and I found there was enough for 
three good mix-ups, and we had a jovial time and 
felt happy because we had arrived at the end of 
our stage ride. The next morning we went into 
Kansas City on the railroad. My demijohn being 
empty I had tied it to my satchel. At that time 
there was no depot at Kansas City. An old house 
that stood about where the depot now is, was used 
for that purpose. We took a bus for the Pacific 
House, on the corner of Delaware and Fourth 
streets, the leading house at that time in Kansas 
City. After resting I asked for my baggage and 
it was missing. Col. Smith, who kept the house 
at that time, said to the bus man: "You had bet- 
ter look up the gent's baggage." Directly the 
man came back with my satchel, and as he walked 
through the office of the hotel he halloed out; 
"Here is a satchel and it must be yours, because 
it has got the Fort Scott card tied to it." The 
joke was so good that I had to set up the drinks 
for the crowd. 

The drivers of the stage coaches in those days 
were characters. All old settlers of those stage 
days remember Old Dan and Red-Hot, two favor- 
ite drivers. 

In the year of 1867 I planned and built the court 
house at Nevada. At the letting of the contract 



116 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

for this court house, an amusing incident or two 
happened. There were a Jew and a Frenchman 
from Fort Scott, — the Jew was in the hide business 
and the Frenchman was a carpenter; so they 
joined hands and put in a bid to beat me out of 
getting- the contract. Over in Nevada they were 
very sociable and liberal ( something they had not 
been to me in the past) and they were wanting to 
treat me all the time to Missouri mountain dew. 
I smelled a rat in the wood pile ; they wanted to 
get me muddled so I could not attend to business, 
and my guess was right, for after getting the con- 
tract I beat them at their own game, ( getting them 
so full they could neither talk Dutch nor French) 
they came back to Fort Scott and said: "Damn 
that Pennsylvania Dutchman, we tried to get him 
drunk, but all we could do was to get his nose red. • ' 
I had the bulge on them anyway, as I had it under- 
stood with the commissioner of building that I 
should put in some straw bids, and if my bid in 
my own name was not the lowest he would take 
the straw^ bid that was lower than the Jew and 
Frenchman, and I was to guarantee the bid O. K. 
The foreigners' bid was between my bid and my 
highest straw bid, and as there was no one to 
guarantee the other two bids which were lower, 
while the [contract was awarded to the straw bid 
which I came forward and guaranteed, so the con- 
tract was let to me by proxy as you might say. 
The opening of this court house, which was fin- 
ished in the following year, was a great social 
event for that time and was celebrated with a grand 
ball in the new court house. Parties going from 



j:a rl y da ys of fort scott 1 1 7 

P^ort Scott were the following-: — George Clark and 
wife, Ben McDonald and wife, Joe Ray and wife, 
Jack White and Kate Stewart, Billy Robinson 
and Fannie Wilson, and myself and Lizzie Wil- 
son. There was a larg:e turn-out of Nevada peo- 
ple, and John Birdseye and wife and Charley 
Graves and wife did the honors to the guests 
from Kansas. The dance was kept up until four 
o'clock in the morning, when the hospitable homes 
of Birdseye and Graves were opened to the ladies 
to get a few hours sleep before starting for home. 
The boys made a full night of it. It was at this 
dance that Joe Ray fell down the stairway (there 
being no rail put up yet around the stair opening). 
Joe in whirling around in the dance with his part- 
ner, disappeared suddenly, stepping off and down 
he went with a crash to the bottom of the stairs. 
He came back immediately and we asked w^hy 
he went down the stairs in that way. He said he 
thought he heard a fellow^ calling him from below 
to take a drink, and that was the quickest way to 
get there and not delay the dance. We did not 
come home in as gleeful a mood as we went over. 
The exsrtions of the dance and the loss of sleep 
told on the ladies, and the boys more or less had 
the big head, as the effect of too much sociability 
of the Nevada gentlemen, but all were pleased 
with the generosity and entertainment of our 
Nevada neighbors. 

My contract price for building this court house 
was $21,000, to be paid for in $10,000 county bonds 
and the balance in county warrants. Charley 
Graves, now living in Nevada, was my superin- 



118 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

tendent and attended to affairs when I was not 
there and he was a great help to me in many ways, 
especially in selling warrants to raise money 
to pay help and about every week he would 
come to Fort Scott with his team and take back 
a wagon load of beer from the brewery company 
here (who owed me for work done them) and sell 
it to the saloon men in Nevada to get money to 
pay the help. It was not very smooth sailing 
those days to build a building of that size and 
character, as we had to make the brick with inex- 
perienced hands and consequently the first kiln 
was a failure. I was to use dry soft native lum- 
ber for sheeting for roof, but when the time came 
for using sheeting I could not obtain it at the 
mills so they let me use green hickory which was 
so hard I had to nail it on with fence nails. The 
consequence was that in a few years the large 
heads on the nails rusted out the tin the building- 
was roofed with, and they had to re-roof the build- 
ing with shingles. I came out all O. K. as to 
profit even if I had to discount warrants and bonds 
liberally and deal in beer to pay my way with. 
Shortly after I took the contract the war prices 
that I figured material at, fell very rapidly, 
enabling me to get my legitimate profit I figured 
those days. About the time I got the walls up 
ready for roofing, there was a fuss sprung up 
between the County Judges and Col. Pitcher, the 
building commissioner. They sent for me and there 
was all kinds of stories afloat, that the wall was 
crooked and cracked and that the Colonel was not 
doing his duty and was letting that Jayhawker 



EARLY DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 119 

Goodlander from Kansas get the best of him and 
the people of Vernon County. I made a good 
fight for the colonel, for there was nothing the 
matter with the building and he was not to blame 
for anything, but it was no use, the colonel had to 
go and they appointed Dr. Dodson and he came to 
me and said: "Charlie, I did not want this 
appointment but they forced it on me and all this 
fuss was got up for was to put Col. Pitcher out of 
office, so you go ahead and finish up your con- 
tract for you know more about it than an old 
saw-bones like me." After that it was smooth 
sailing and when the contract was complete my 
Missouri neighbors were well pleased as the way 
they treated us Jayhawkers at the opening of the 
court house was evidence. 

The same year Charley Drake and I jointly 
built the business house on the site where his bank 
building now stands. The building cost some 
$16,000. I took charge and built the house and 
furnished some material, and Charley furnished 
some also, and each kept a debit and credit 
account, and when we came to settle up, after the 
building was finished, Charley owed me a differ- 
ence of $25.00. I think he always thought I got 
the best of him. The timber in this building was 
hauled from Osage Mission, and was cotton wood. 
This building caught fire and burnt down in 1876, 
one Sunday night when Drake and I were at 
church in the city hall to hear a crank preacher, 
and no wonder our building burnt, as it was an 
unusual thing for either of us to go to hear any 
kind of preaching, let alone this ranting dema- 



120 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

gogue. Charley Drake moved his tin shop and 
hardware store to his part of the building and as 
he had prospered since he had opened up his small 
tinker's shop on the Plaza ten years before, he 
added largely to his hardware and had one of the 
largest and best stores in Southern Kansas. When 
parties would remark about Drake's big prices for 
goods, Charley had a habit of saying he sold at 
cost and carriage. A bow-legged English barber 
by the name of Joe Barker, who had a barber 
shop on the opposite side of the street from 
Drake, was continually harping at Drake and 
telling him he was certainly a very smart man if 
he succeeded in making themoney he had by selling 
his goods at cost and carriage. I rented my build- 
ing to Bright Brothers, dry goods merchants. 

Up to 1860, I built about three-fourths of all the 
buildings built in Fort Scott. The Gulf House, 
now extinct, was built late in 1869, and opened a 
month after the Gulf road got here. From the 
year 1866 to 1870, I worked some fifty men in my 
building business, attending to my men during 
the day and my figuring and bookkeeping and 
fun with the boys at night, and I was generally 
the last man seen at night and the first in the 
morning. 

When I came to Fort Scott there was a cavalry 
company here under the command of Capt. Stur- 
gis. A month prior to the time I came, a company 
under Capt. Anderson had had a skirmish with 
Montgomery's gang at Hell's Bend on the Marma- 
ton, and one of Sturgis' troopers was killed. 
There was hardlv a vear from 1858 to 1870 but what 




C. F. Drake, born in Ohio. Came to Fort 
Scott in June, 1858. Now living. A prominent 
citizen of Fort Scott. The man that sold goods 
at cost and carriage and made a fortune. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 121 

there were troops here. Before the war and after 
the war they were regulars, and during the war 
volunteers. Prior to the war, troops were here on 
account of the border troubles, and after the war 
up to 1870, on account of the settlers of what was 
called the Neutral Lands. These lands were in 
the south part of this county and the counties of 
Crawford and Cherokee, and shortly after the war 
had been sold by the government to the parties 
that built the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf 
Railroad. After the purchase they were called 
the Joy Lands, after Col. James Joy, who backed 
up the building of this railroad. Prior to the sale 
of these lands by the government there had been a 
great many people settled on the land, expecting 
when they would come in market to use their pre- 
emption rights or get the land at the government 
price, $1.25 per acre, so when the land was bought 
by the railroad company, they were ordered off. 
They resisted, so the government to back up its 
sale, sent troops here to eject the settlers from the 
land. The settlers resisted from year to year until 
the railroad got as far as Fort Scott, and the Kan- 
sas City & Gulf people, being of a liberal dispo- 
sition, made a compromise with the settlers that 
was satisfactory to those who still resided on the 
land and peace was restored between the railroad 
and the settlers, the railroad company selling the 
land to the actual settlers at approximately near 
the same price they would have had to pay the gov- 
ernment. There were a great many officers of the 
regular army here during those years. The fol- 
lowing is a list that I remember of being here, and 



122 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

with whom I was personally acquainted: — Captain 
Sturgis, Old General Harney, Lieutenant Finch 
and Captain Lyons, who were here before the war. 
After the war, Colonel Hazen, General O'Neill, 
Colonel Merrill, Major Upton, Captain Romeyn, 
Colonel Poland, Captain Robinson, Lieutenants 
Kerr, Carlen, Munson and Baker. These officers 
did not have much to do, and they had plenty of 
time for social intercourse, and were all very 
agfreeable to us citizens. 

The proprietors and editors of the Fort Scott 
papers from 1858 to 1870 were Jim Jones, Ed Smith, 
Dave Emmert, W. A. Cormany. Haywood Broth- 
ers, Georg^e A. Crawford. At the time George A. 
Crawford was proprietor of a paper, Web Wilder 
was editor. 

The mayors of Fort Scott from 1859 to 1870 were 
Joe Ray, Uncle Johnny Miller, George A. Rey- 
nolds, George Dimon. Isaac Stadden, Jack 
McDonald, C. F. Drake, Ben McDonald and 
Frank Boyle. 

On July 3rd, 1869, was the opening of the bridge 
across the Missouri river at Kansas City. This 
was the first bridge built over the Missouri river, 
and as it was one of the events of the progress of 
civilization westward, it was celebrated with 
speeches, parades and so forth. A lot of Fort 
Scotters decided they would attend the celebration. 
They were Col. Charles Blair, T. F. Robley, Ben 
McDonald and wife, George Clark, Judge Brinker- 
hotf , Dr. Hepler, Newt. Morrison and myself. We 
went by stage to Paola, and there took the Kan- 
sas City and Fort Scott road to Kansas City, 



EARL V DA y;S OF FORT SCOTT 123 

that bein^ then the southern terminus of that road. 
We all put up at the old Pacitic House. The cele- 
bration was a g-rand success. I remember A. C. 
Dawes, the passenger agent of the Council Bluffs 
railroad, was marshal of the day, and quite a 
number of speeches were made by some of the 
older citizens, some of whom are dead now and 
some alive. As I remember, Kersey C'oates, Van 
Horn, Tom Bullene and Major Billy Warner 
were among- them. The next day being the Fourth of 
July, George Clark, Dr. Hepler, Judge Brinker- 
hoff. Newt. Morrison and I decided to go out to 
Horner's wine garden in Westport and celebrate. 
Blair and Robley stayed in the hotel and up in 
their room and did their celebrating over a case 
of Cook's Imperial, while Horner's native wine 
was good enough for us. Horner's Garden that 
day was well filled by the natives, among them 
quite a number of ladies. As we became patri- 
otic, each one of us was to make a speech on the 
importance of the day. There was quite a flow of 
frontier oratory. When I made my speech you 
bet it was a spread eagle, and in the course of my 
patriotic language I slipped some words that were 
not very suitable for the ears of the ladies and I 
apologized to my audience. Old Man Horner got 
up and waving his hand said: "Go ahead, all 
right, the ladies no understand what you say," 
they all being Germans. "Thanks," I said, "I 
will in the balance of my talk control my tongue. " 
After celebrating at Horner's Garden we went to 
the Harris Hotel and engaged all the spring- 
chickens for a Fourth of July supper. While we 



124 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

were there Ben McDonald and A. C. Dawes drove 
up, accompanied by their wives, and wanted a 
spring chicken supper. Old Man Harris said: "I 
have none left, as there is a gang in the house eat- 
ing all I have," so Ben and Dawes to get any- 
thing to eat, had to drive back to Kansas City. 
Some of the Westport parties took exception to 
some of our actions and were going to have us 
arrested, but there happened to be a Major Lewis 
living there whom we knew when he was in Fort 
Scott with the army. He came forward and told 
the Westporters who we were and that we were 
only doing what all good Americans should do, 
celebrating the Glorious Fourth. They, finding 
out who we were, joined in with the fun. So ended 
our celebration of the opening of the first bridge 
across the Big Muddy. 

The M. K. & T. railroad was built in here on 
December 7th, 1870. Just one year to a day after 
the Gulf. At the time of the change of our town 
from a stage and ox-team to a railroad town 
some of us boys, though old boys by this time, 
concluded we must have a club-house to entertain 
new-comers; so A. McAllister, H. S. Curry, B. 
E. Langdon, T. F. Robley, Tom Linn, Al Camp- 
bell and myself organized a club and called it the 
"Joss Club." We entertained quite a number of 
men of note in Kansas of that date. Among 
them the Rev. Kallock Rossington, Editor Prouty, 
Sheriff Lowe, and a number of others. We used to 
have any amount of amusement, and entertained 
in royal style. At this time a brother of mine 
from Illinois made his first visit to Fort Scott, 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 25 

and I said: "Boys, we must treat him royally." 
Among one of our amusements now and then, I 
used to give the Indian dance. Now my brother 
wore a wig, and none of the "Joss" boys knew 
it, so after we had passed the flowing bowl of 
refreshments, the boys said: "Charley, you must 
show your eastern brother the war dance. " My 
brother was seated in the center of the room and 
the boys seated around the wall, so, after rolling 
up my pants and putting a red blanket over my 
shoulders, and the handle of a feather duster 
down the back of my neck to make a plume, my 
face being reddened by the refreshments we had 
had, I looked a complete Indian, so I went 
through the corn dance, and the rain dance, and 
the war dance and others, and at last, as a wind- 
up, with scalp dance, and in the twinkling of an 
eye, I scalped my brother as bald headed as an 
egg. The boys in their great surprise gave one 
howl and rolled off their chairs onto the floor 
convulsed with laughter. My brother was very 
much chagrined at my action, but after the empty- 
ing of a basket of champagne he became recon- 
ciled to the ways of the woolly west. Champagne 
in those days was not any too good for us. 

The Joss club, through the influence of Capt. 
Charley Morris, got a six pound gun and carriage 
from Jefl'erson barracks, and named it "The Joss' 
and used to give an evening salute at the head- 
quarters, afterwards this gun was used to Are a 
salute of nine guns when a member of the Joss 
Club got married. In later years the gun became 
the property of the Goodlander mill, and in 187H 



126 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

when the mill blew up, it being about the only asset 
I had left of the mill I sold it to parties at Wamego, 
Kansas. One day the boys concluded to have 
some fun, and made a very large kite, which took 
an ordinary clothes line to hold, and one night 
when there was a good breeze blowing after dark 
they tied a small pig to the tail of the kite, and it 
being up in the dark the boys had a laugh on the 
inhabitants, who had been attracted by the squeal 
of the pig in the air. It caused considerable con- 
sternation, and great crowds came in the direc- 
tion of the Joss House, and said the Joss Club 
was up to some more deviltry. The Joss boys 
soon began to get married, as they were of age, 
and broke up the club. 

As I have now about concluded my memoirs 
and recollections of the early days of Port Scott, 
up to the advent of railroads, thinking it may 
be interesting to the readers of this volume, to 
know the history of the early stages of the Kan- 
sas. City, Fort Scott & Gulf, and the M. K. & T. 
Railroads, I will give give my recollection 
of it. I may not be entirely correct, for it 
is all from memory, as the preceding pages have 
been. I hope any one who reads these pages, and 
remembers better than I do, will kindly pardon 
any error that I have made as I never kept a 
diary in my life, and never carried a memorandum 
book to note down events. But I will give the 
history of the two roads as best I can from my 
memory. 

The M. K. & T. Railroad originated from an 
old charter taken out before the war, called the 




THE JOSS CLUB. 

C. W. Goodlander. 
T. F. Robley. T. W. Lynn. 

Hi C'urrie. Bert Lanj^don. 

Col. A. McAllister. 
All living but Col. McAllister. 



EA ELY DAI 'S OF FORT SCO TT 127 

Tebo & Neosho Railroad. Col. Wilson and Geo. 
A. Crawford of Fort Scott and some parties up 
along the Mo. Pac. Railroad east of Sedalia in 
Missouri were connected in the charter for this 
road. Now where Tebo was I do not know, and 
never did, but I judge it was the name of a stream 
just as Neosho is, so I suppose the charter's limit 
was from the Tebo River in Missouri to the 
Neosho River in Kansas. The war broke out 
shortly after the charter was obtained. I have no 
knowledge of much work having been done on it, 
in the way of surveys or any other work. After 
the closing the war the matter of this road was 
taken up by the citizens of Fort Scott, and a 
citizen of Scott Township by the name of Thomas 
Wilson, was put on the route between this point 
and the Tebo, to work up a franchise. Old Col. 
Tom as we called him, with his mule, tramped 
back and forth over the route, getting some 
encouragement here and there but not very success- 
ful as a whole. He returned to Fort Scott again 
and again somewhat discouraged, and Crawford, 
Wilson, Drake and others — would encourage him, 
furnish him spending money, and send him out 
again. Tom stuck to the enterprise like a tick, 
until he got considerable encouragement. During 
his work on this road Charlie Drake named him 
Tebo Wilson, and he was generally called that up 
to the time of his death a few years ago. By his 
exertions and the encouragement he received from 
the citizens of Fort Scott, this route began to show 
to the people of capital the feasibility of a rail- 
road. The old Tebo charter in 1867 was merged 



128 ME 310 IRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

into that of the M. K. & T. Railroad, the starting- 
point in Missouri being Sedalia. Col. Jaynes and 
Judge Newkirk were the leading spirits. Newkirk 
was elected president and Jaynes treasurer of the 
road. They associated with them Bob Stevens of 
New York, at that time a noted railroad builder. 
They secured subsidies from counties in Missouri 
through which the road would pass, and this 
county (Bourbon of Kansas) voted $150,000. The 
officers of the road proposed to Fort Scott, if they 
would vote $75,000 additional they would make 
Fort Scott headquarters and build here the first 
shops for the road southwest of Sedalia. These 
bonds were voted. After this Newkirk and Jaynes 
bought 108 acres of land ( in the locality of the 
Normal schools) just outside the city limits at 
that time, on which to erect the depot and shops, 
and the line of the road, about south of Osbun's 
farm, was surveyed through Newkirk 's and Jaynes* 
land, through what is now called East Fort Scott. 
Now comes the first Waterloo Fort Scott had. In 
the contract between the city and the railroad the 
depot was to be located within the city limits, and 
a petition was presented to the mayor and council 
to take in this 108 acres of land as the Newkirk 
and Jaynes addition to Fort Scott. This petition 
was endorsed by Col. Wilson, Geo. A. Crawford, 
C. F. Drake, B. P. McDonald and a large 
majority of the property holders of Fort Scott, 
but with all they could do they could not get that 
idiotic mayor and council to take that addition 
into the city limits. Their objection was, it would 
build up a rival town, and hurt the property they 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 129 

owned at the junction of Main and Market and 
along Market street, and kill the location of the 
town at that date. They were so narrow minded 
that they could not see if we had a larger town we 
must have more room to build. The mayor and 
majority of the council's refusal to take in this 
addition angered the officers of the road and Bob 
Stevens in his anger said "damn Fort Scott, I'll 
build the road south west along the Marmaton. 
{ it being a better line any way ) to the junction of 
a road at that time building from Junction City 
south along the Neosho river, called the Valley 
Ivoute, and build a town there. " The town he built 
is the Parsons of today — so the city of Fort Scott 
today can blame the imbecile mayor and council 
who were in authority at that time, that Fort Scott 
is not a city of 30,000 instead of the dwarf it is 
today. This act 30 years ago caused an ill feeling 
between the people of Fort Scott and the M. K. & 
T. Railroad w^hich exists today to some extent. 

The chief engineer of the road, if I remember 
rightly, was Major O. B. Gunn, now living the 
life of a gentlemen of leisure in Kansas ('ity. Mo. 
The chief contractor was John Scullin, who today 
is a prosperous citizen of St. Louis and prominent 
in street railroads of that city. I have met him 
there in late years. He holds his age well and also 
a tight grip on the fortune he has made by hard 
work in thirty or forty years of close application 
to business. 

The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf, as it was 
called when first built, originated in Kansas City 
about 1865. Col. Kersey Coates was the leading 



130 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

spirit and its first president, by his exertions and 
othercapitalists of Kansas City, they began building 
this road late in 1866 and built out as far as 
Olathe, where it stopped for a time on account of 
capital. In 1868, Col. James Joy, of Detroit, 
Mich., became interested in the road and under his 
control and management it was built through to 
Baxter Springs. Bonds were also voted to this 
road by Bourbon county to the amount of $150,000. 
Port Scott I think had some little promises of get- 
ting shops for this road, but no contract. In the 
early days of the road, B. P. McDonald and I 
made a trip to Detroit to see Col. Joy, in the 
interest of having the shops located at Port Scott. 
We were so successful that in a short time Col. 
Joy gave orders to build shops here, and now 
comes another black eye to Fort Scott. When Col. 
Coates received this order from Col. Joy, he went 
to work and unearthed an old contract that had 
been made with the mayor and city council of 
Kansas City, (that for a certain consideration the 
first shops must be built at Kansas City) so it was 
goodbye to Port Scott's show for shops. There 
has always been a kindly feeling between our 
people and the Kansas City and Port Scott Rail- 
road. There was one experience in the history of 
these two roads, which I think is not generally 
known. In the late 60 's the government gave to 
the first railroad that would reach the north 
boundary of the Indian Territory in the neighbor- 
hood of Neosho Valley, the right of way through 
the Territory, so there was a race between the M. 
K. & T. and the Gulf to claim this right of way. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 131 

When the Gulf Road was at Columbus, there is no 
doubt but that they would have gained this right 
of way if they had built from Columns to Chetopa, 
as they could have done so and beaten the M. K. 
& T., but when the Gulf got to Columbus there 
were bonds offered them to go to Baxter Springs 
and the temptation was too great for them to 
resist. They built to Baxter and reached the 
Indian country in that locality, thinking they 
could claim the right of way just as well at that 
point as further west. But, as the order of the 
government read "The Neosho Valley," the M. 
K. & T. having built their road to Chetopa, which 
was in the Neosho Valley at the north border of 
the Indian Territory, was immediately granted the 
right of way through the Indian country and forth- 
with built their road through to Denison, Texas, 
and for years Baxter Springs was the terminal of 
the Gulf Railroad. 

The chief engineer of the Gulf Railroad was Mr. 
Chanute, who I think is now living in Michigan, 
connected with some railroad there. The chief 
contractor, when their road was built through 
Fort Scott, was Pope Sheldin, who is now a prom- 
inent citizen of Kansas City. I met him there 
only a few months ago and talked over the early 
days of railroads reaching Fort Scott. Hi Diggins, 
now living in Springfield, Mo., was conductor on 
the first passenger train run into Fort Scott, 
which was the excursion train at the openinir of 
the K. C, F. S. & M. Railroad into Fort Scott. 

I could have given many more historical, inter- 
esting and amusing incidents of Fort Scott's early 



132 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

days than I have, but my intention was to only 
issue a pamphlet instead of a book, and still give 
the reader a good idea of Fort Scott as a frontier 
town. 

Having now written of some of those incidents, 
which occurred under my personal observation, 
during the era covered by the daily use of the 
steady going ox team and rumbling, rollicking 
stage coach, in the city of Fort Scott, and being 
reminded that I have arrived at that point, in 
time, when the locomotive and telegraph lines 
made their advent into our little city, I will close, 
with no apology to offer for bad grammar, errors 
or uncouth language that may have slipped from 
my pen in relating the contents of this booklet. 




H. T. WILSON. 
One of the fathers of Fort Scott. 



HIERO. TCNNAMT WILSON. 



Col. Hiero Tennant Wilson, whose picture embel- 
lishes the pages of this booklet, was born near 
Russelville, Logan county, Kentucky, September 
2, 1806. His parents were Virginians; his father. 
Samuel Wilson, had been a soldier in the Revolu. 
tionary war. Col. Wilson was raised on a farm 
and acquired a common school education; when 
grown he went to Russelville and secured a clerk- 
ship in a store where he learned something of the 
mercantile life. In 1834 he moved from Kentucky 
to Fort Gibson, Cherokee Nation, Indian Terri- 
tory, to assist his brother, Thomas E. Wilson, 
who was the Post Sutler and Indian trader at that 
point. He remained there until 1843, when he was 
appointed by the secretary of war as Post Sutler 
of Fort Scott, which had been established as a 
military post the previous year. He came to Fort 
Scott in '43, thus becoming the first citizen that 
lived here. Besides being Post Sutler and doing 
business with the military, he extended his busi- 
ness with the people of Western Missouri and the 
Indians. The tribe with which he traded most» 
was the Osage, whose headquarters at that time 
were at the Osage Mission, (now known as St. 
Paul) some thirty-eight miles southwest of Fort 
Scott. This was a Catholic Mission, established 



134 MEMOIRS AXD RECOLLECTIOXS 

some years before our town. The Colonel soon 
learned the language of the Osages, having 
acquired the Cherokee and Creek while at Fort 
Gibson. He became very popular with this tribe: 
they termed him the Big White Chief. The Colonel 
always treated them as kindly as iie would one of 
his own race: he was popular with the military of 
the Post and retained his position of Sutler until 
the Post was abandoned, in 1853. He continued 
in the mercantile business after the abandonment of 
the Post, which was left solely in charge of 
Orderly Sergeant Reed. The property was then 
advertised for sale and Major Howe came with an 
auctioneer to sell the buildings. The government 
had no claim to the land on which the buildings 
stood, as there was no reservation at this Post. 
Col. Wilson protested the sale, claiming his right 
under the pre-emption law of 1841. Previous to 
the sale quite a number of people had occupied the 
houses and some were then residing in them. The 
sale was made April 16, 1855, and from it the 
government realized less than $5,000 of the $200,000 
which the Post improvements had cost. The loss 
was due to the government not establishing a mil- 
itary reservation, and to Col. Wilson's suggestion 
that each purchaser should only buy just what he 
wanted for bis own use, (and not for speculation). 
There was no complaint. Each bought a home for 
himself. Colonel Wilson bought one of these 
houses and lived in it until the day of his death. 
After the abandonment of the Post and sale of 
buildings he continued in the mercantile business 
and built up a good trade. In 1858 he took as 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 1 35 

partners, Joseph Ray of Michrgan, and S. B. 
Gordon of Jefferson City, Mo., the firm bearing 
the name of Wilson, Gordon «& Ray. Ray and 
Cxordon were twins, both having- been born on 
November 2'), same year, one in Michigan and 
one in Missouri — afterwards to meet and form a 
partnership. This firm sold in 'HG or '07 to MeCord 
Brothers. Col. Wilson then handled real estate 
and insurance until old age prevented him from 
attending to business. After the Fort was aban- 
oned in 1855, a town company was formed by Col. 
Wilson and some of the parties that lived here at 
that time, but it did not make much headway. 

In the summer of 1857, George A. Crawford, in 
company with a party consisting of Eddy, Hol- 
brook and some others from the States, came to 
Fort Scott and took Col. Wilson in with them and 
bought out the first company and formed the Fort 
Scott Town Company with George A. Crawford as 
President, Col. Wilson as Secretary and Treas- 
urer. Crawford and Wilson being the only resi- 
dent members of the company had full sway in 
handling the property. In selling lots they gave 
bond for a deed until they could get a title from 
the government to the land, which was obtained in 
the fall of 18()(). Col. Wilson was looked upon as 
the Father of Fort Scott. He has held office in 
First Territory Legislature, County Commissioner 
of Bourbon county and member of the City Coun- 
cil, only because the interests of the community 
seemed to require it : he was never an office seeker. 
He took an active part in getting railroads to 
Fort Scott. He was one of the principal i)arties 



136 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

in the organization of the Tebo <fe Neosho Rail- 
road Co. that was a forerunner of the M., K. & 
T. Railroad that now runs through Fort Scott. 
The county of Wilson was named for him, also 
Wilson street. 

His parents were of the Cumberland Presbyterian 
faith, but the Colonel was not a member of any 
church, but was liberal to all; and if there ever 
was an upright, honest, conscientious man, he was 
one, — temperate in his habits, straightforward in 
his dealings with his fellow man, he was an exam- 
ple for any church member to take pattern from. 

He was married in Pettis county. Mo., near 
Booneville, to Elizabeth C. Hogan, daughter of 
Gen. David Hogan ; one of a large family of chil- 
dren, by whom he had three children : Virginia T.i 
Elizabeth C. and Fannie W. These daughters 
were educated at the old Visitation Convent on 
Cass Avenue, St. Louis, Mo. He was originally 
a Whig, but since the settlement of Kansas he 
always affiliated with the Democratic party. He 
was a great admirer of Zachary Taylor, Henry 
Clay and Daniel Webster, (was personally ac- 
quainted with Taylor and Clay). He named his 
three daughters for these three noted men: Vir- 
ginia Taylor, Elizabeth Clay and Fannie Webster. 

Col. Wilson was of the Chesterfieldian style, a 
Southerner born, a refined gentlemen in all respects; 
of large stature, six feet two inches in height, 
weighing 206 pounds and well proportioned; kind 
to all, and as polite to the humblest servant as to 
the man of wealth; exceedingly neat in his attire 
and regular as a clock in his habits: he was firm 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 187 

in his convictions and never swayed from what he 
thought right. He was admired, honored and 
respected by his fellow citizens. He died in August, 
1892, at the good old age of 86, mourned by all 
who knew him. His good wife died three years 
later. 



GEORGE ADDISON CPAWEORD. 



Geo. A. Crawford was born July 27, 1827, in 
Clinton county, Pennsylvania. He was the son of 
Judge Geo. Crawford and Elizabeth Quigley Craw- 
ford, his father was of Scotch-Irish and his 
mother of German descent. He received his early 
education at a school presided over by his father, 
and finished his education at JelTerson College, 
Pennsylvania. The first money that he earned 
was in Salem, Ky., where he went with some other 
students to teach the young blue grass generation 
of that date: among them relatives of President 
Zachary Taylor. The fall of 1847 he joined 
hands with his room mate, Sam Simmons, in the 
management of a select school at Canton, Miss., 
(by the way this same Sam Simmons to whom he 
introduced me some forty years ago is still 
living in St. Louis, where he has resided for some 
fifty years). A year or so later Geo. A. returned 
to his Pennsylvania home, and undertook the 
profession of law, during these studies he became 
editor of a Lockhaven paper. He took an active 
part in the politics of the day. In 1853 he 
accepted a clerkship in the post office department 
in Washington, D. C. From that date until May, 
1857, the most of his time was spent in the city of 
Washington. While there he took an active part 



GEO. A. CRAWFORD. 

One of the fathers of Fort Scott. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT ]39 

in politics. Among- the different parties who were 
up for office from 1850 to 1857 was Gov. Packer, 
who when elected offered him the position of sec- 
retary of state, which Mr. Crawford declined. In 
the spring- of 1857 he concluded to take Horace 
Greely 's advice and go west. I have often thought 
that if he had remained in his native state, instead 
of coming west he would have filled many import- 
tant offices in politics. I first met him in the sum- 
mer of 1857, w^hen he came to Fulton City, 111., to 
seehisfriend, William Gallag-her, a Pennsylvanian. 
A month or so later Mr. Gallagher told me he 
was going- to Kansas and had arranged with Mr. 
Crawford to go with him. The next time I met 
him was in St. Louis, December 2, 1857. He told 
me he had been out to Kansas and had established 
the town of Fort Scott and wanted me to go there 
with him. I told him I had paid my fare to Pitts- 
burg via the Mississippi & Ohio River to visit my 
mother that winter before going farther west, but 
promised him I would come to Fort Scott the fol- 
lowing spring, which I did; so Crawford and Gal- 
lagher were the cause of me locating in Fort Scott. 
In the summer of '57 he met some parties in 
Lawrence, consisting of Eddy, Holbrook and 
others and went to Fort Scott ( which at that time 
was an abandoned Fort) and bought a claim of 
some 320 acres of land, (the land at that time not 
being in market by the government for sale ) and 
laid out the present Fort Scott. He took into the 
company Col. H. T. Wilson, who at that time was 
the mercantile business and had been sutler at 
this Post. George A. Crawford was made Presi- 



140 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

dent and H. T. Wilson, Secretary and Treasurer 
of the Town Company, they being the only res- 
ident members of the company, handled the prop- 
erty to the best advantage. These two men worked 
in perfect harmony and were a good team, but 
mated in size as a Norman horse and a Shetland 
pony. As they went about town transacting bus- 
iness, they reminded one of father and twelve-year 
old son. 

In the early days of Fort Scott in the time of 
border ruffians and jayhawkism, Mr, Crawford 
took a very important part. He was the leader of 
the law and order party and was between the two 
fires and was in danger of being burnt, but ran 
the gauntlet and came out ahead. After the bor- 
der troubles were all over, his main aim w^as to 
build up Fort Scott. At the same time he took an 
important part in politics in the early days of 
Kansas, and no man did more for the good of the 
state than Little George, as we used to call him. 
As fast as he received money for lots sold he 
invested it in improvements as he thought best 
to help his idol. Fort Scott. In 1863 he built the 
first flouring mill in Southern Kansas, on the 
banks of the Marmaton, and later on about the 
close of the war, he built adjoining this a large 
woolen factory for manufacturing cloth, the first 
I think built west of the Mississippi river. This 
was quite a venture in business of that line, for so 
frontier a town as Fort Scott. ( I have worn sev- 
eral suits made from cloth woven at Crawford's 
Woolen Mills). He was not content with what he 
had done in the w^ay of manufacturing interests, 



EA RL y DA YS OF FOR T SCO TT 141 

but still progressive, built the first foundry and 
machine shops here, in 1869 I think. About the 
same time he became sole owner of the Monitor, 
our leading paper, and connected with it a book 
bindery. A year or so previous, he and his asso- 
ciates established the town of Osage Mission. 

In 1871 he was elected one of the committee of 
the Kansas State Agricultural Society. The 
same year he was appointed by President Grant 
Commissioner for Kansas to the Centennial Fair 
to be held in 1876. He applied himself closely to 
the interests of this fair, from the time of his 
appointment until the close of '76. The credit 
that Kansas received at the Centennial was wholly 
due to the energy and management of Mr. Craw- 
ford. May, 1877, he went to Short Creek, the 
newly discovered lead regions, helping start a 
town there, but I don't think he ever gathered 
any moss in the venture. In 1870 Mr. Crawford's 
woolen and flouring mills were destroyed by fire, 
which proved a severe loss, as he was without 
insurance. Some years later on his foundry and 
machine shops and paper and book bindery 
becoming a financial failure in the hard times that 
Fort Scott experienced from '74 to '78, he con- 
cluded to strike out for Colorado, which at that 
time was considered the frontier, full of danger 
and hardships. 

His experienced eye told him that it was the 
land for his second attempt to lay out and build 
up a town and retrieve what he had lost in Kansas. 
He looked around and selected a site at the junc- 
tion of Grand and Gunnison Rivers and believed 



142 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

this was a place for a city. He formed a Town 
Company and located the now present Grand 
Junction. He renewed his old time energy; caused 
ditches to be built to supply the town with water, 
erected a hotel, planted shade trees, established 
brick yards and other industries, and liberally 
advertised the town from Maine to California. 
He founded the Grand Junction Star and was 
president of the Grand Junction Publishing Co. 
He had a hand in every industry that built up 
Grand Junction, and by his exertions and enter- 
prise he retrieved the fortunes he had lost. 

But Little George did not live to enjoy the 
fruits of his industry, as he died in that city on 
the 29th of January, 1891; (by the way, this date 
was the anniversary of the admission of the State 
of Kansas, "his first love, " into the Union ). The 
article in regard to his death published in the 
Grand Junction Star, which gives him no more 
credit than he deserved, I think most appropriate 
in regard to this biography : 

GEOGE ADDISON CRAWFORD. 

The brave little governor is gone. A life 
struggle with death is ended, and one of the grand 
heroic souls that men love in life and venerate in 
death, has gone to the Great Beyond. Death has 
never claimed a more determined opponent, and 
life never possessed a more useful and active 
servant. An invalid from infancy, the life period 
of Geo. A. Crawford of over sixty years was spent 
in a continual battle with sickness and disease, 
sustained only by a will power remarkable in 
intensity, and an intellect wonderful in extent. 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 143 

To most men the life bestowed upon Gov. Crawford 
would have been a burden to self and friends; but 
through his w^onderful will, his genius for leader- 
ship, his quiet intelligence and bright, kindly 
disposition life was made a grand success; and a 
blessing to self and fellovvmen. He was never 
discouraged, he never gave up, and he was never 
aught else but a true, kindly gentleman. Those 
who knew him as he stood on the banks of the 
Grand and looked across on the wild sage brush 
country in which he then proposed to found a city, 
cannot forget the bright prophecies then so clearly 
foretold. Those who have struggled with him, 
over desperate adversities that followed for seven 
long years will never forget the cheering smile, 
and ringing words of encouragement that caused 
adversity to become prosperity, and not one will 
ever forget that on all occasions the Little 
Governor was always a gentleman. Much as all 
had admired him in the past, the heroic struggle 
made the last three months with death has but 
increased that admiration. In this struggle there 
was no fear of death, but a wish, a true unselfish 
wish to behold the city he had founded and did 
so much to build, become what it is surely destined 
to become, a grand and glorious city. Grand 
Junction is the crowning work of Gov. Craw- 
ford, and many a citizen not only in Mesa 
County, but in the entire state will grieve that his 
dream could not have become with him a reality, 
and yet while we grieve it is with a deep pride 
of true citizenship that we feel and know that he 
belonged to Mesa county and w^estern Colorado. 



144 MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS 

Successful in his youth in his native state, a 
distinguished and respected citizen in the state of 
Kansas, honored throughout the entire nation, 
he came with all the honors that state and nation 
could bestow, to create in the wilds of Western 
Colorado, a city which would become the crowning- 
work, and triumph of his life; he well succeeded, 
but his success, as many such triumphs have been^ 
has been crowned with death. Many will 
mourn, many a tear will be shed o'er the grave 
of the brave little man, whose life filled with 
adversity and affliction, yet became, through a 
magnificent will and genius, the most earnest 
and useful we have ever known. " 

Geo. H. Crawford, or Gov. Grawford as he was 
commonly called in Kansas, as well as his new 
home Grand Junction, was inclined to literature, 
but his ill health compelled him to abandon it. 
Little George was a bachelor, but quite a ladies^ 
man. He was never more content than when 
surrounded by the ladies. But from rumors 
afloat at the time of his death, if death had not 
claimed him a fascinating widow, whom he had met 
the previous summer, at the sea shore, would 
have become his wife before the opening of the 
spring buds of '92. He after forty years or more 
mingling with the ladies, succumbed as the most 
of men to Cupid's arrow. He was not a church 
member but the churches had no warmer friend 
than he, both in attendance and support. He was 
considered something of a politician in the early 
days of Kansas and was what we then termed a 
Free State Democrat. Later on in the late 60 's 



EA RL Y DA YS OF FORT SCOTT 145 

and in the 70 's up to the time of his leaving- Kan- 
sas, he was what I would call a conservative repub- 
lican. 

The appellation of governor arose from his hav- 
ing once been nominated for that high position in 
Kansas. He was quite an orator and I have heard 
him make some fine speeches. The worst trouble 
wa^ that his physique was too feeble for his brain 
and his strength failed him, when he was most 
interesting. He enjoyed the frolics of the boys in 
the early days of our town, but was usually a 
looker on, as his strength prevented him from 
being a participant, and was never happier than 
when he had a good joke on some one of them. 
He was of a happy disposition, and he enjoyed 
seeing others happy. Everybody liked him, and 
enjoyed his society and there was not an old Fort 
Scotter that knew him, but that mourned when he 
left Fort Scott, and doubly so when they heard of 
his death. 




Goodlander Hotel, built 1888. J. F. Letton. Prop. 
Rates— $2.00, $2.50 and $3.00 per day. 



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